Virtual
Bookshare
Hundreds of thousands of people with dyslexia, learning disabilities, visual impairments, physical disabilities, and other reading barriers have read millions of Bookshare books. It has empowered them to study for school, pursue careers, and read for fun. Contribute your skills and passions to help people with print disabilities read. From scanning and proofreading, to describing images, to providing support for Bookshare® teachers and families.
Volunteers must be at least 15 years old and U.S. residents.
Ebird
Thanks to the contributions of eBirders everywhere, this growing database has become an unparalleled information resource on birds. eBird data are a powerful resource for a wide range of scientific questions. eBird Status and Trends highlights Cornell Lab analyses of continental bird abundances, range boundaries, habitats, and trends. eBird transforms a global birding community’s passion for birds into critical data for research, conservation, and education.
Family Search
Our vision is carried out by a dedicated team of employees and volunteers who work tirelessly to preserve and share the largest collection of genealogical and historical records in the world. We strive to create and link the best and most valuable research resources to help people discover who they are by exploring where they come from. For over 100 years, FamilySearch and its predecessors have been actively gathering, preserving, and sharing genealogical records worldwide. No special skills are required!
Click the Indexing link at the top of the FamilySearch pages once you have created your account. Web Indexing is one of the most important things you can help us with because FamilySearch can provide access, at no charge, to millions of indexed online records as our users search for sources that verify the life events and family relationships of their ancestors. The indexes allow individuals to search with the names, dates and locations they already know. Without indexes, research is much slower. Indexing groups can be created so that users can work with the same projects as they support and help one another.
Join in indexing today on the worldwide effort to bring records access to everyone.
Freedom on the Move
By volunteering with Freedom on the Move, genealogists will have a resource, research aid, and pedagogical tool available to assist with important work. As well, scholars, students and historians will have data produced by volunteers like you available to them in new and creative ways to aid with research, projects, assignments and historical hobbies.
Learning Ally
Become part of our team and empower dyslexic, blind, and visually impaired students to succeed in school, and in life. Whether you have a lot of time or just a few minutes, there are meaningful ways you can help students who struggle to read, learn, and thrive. Please join us. Register to volunteer in easy 3-step process. Volunteers must be at least 16 years of age.
Library of Congress
Be a virtual volunteer for the Library of Congress with By the People. Improve access to history by transcribing digitized documents from Library collections. Everyone is welcome to take part! Volunteer-created transcriptions improve search, readability, and access to these pages from history for everyone. All transcriptions are made and reviewed by volunteers before they are returned to the Library's website. You don't need to create an account to transcribe, but registered users can also review the transcriptions of others and track their contributions.
LibriVox
LibriVox volunteers read and record chapters of books in the public domain (books no longer under copyright), and make them available for free on the Internet. Practically, this means we record books published before 1926. All our recordings (including yours, if you volunteer for us) are also donated into the public domain.
Anyone who wishes to volunteer to record for LibriVox is always welcome. We record books in all languages.You do not need any prior experience to volunteer for LibriVox. All volunteers need to register individually for an account on the forum. We do request all new volunteers submit a 1-minute test recording to confirm they have their settings correct before they start recording. More information on this and other aspects of volunteering for LibriVox will be provided to individuals once their registration is activated.
We are totally web based and are unable to sign any paperwork - we have no office, no staff and no way to know how many total hours anyone has spent volunteering. The only record we have is the length of any finished recordings which will be available on a personal readers page once projects are cataloged, which can sometimes be many months from when a recording is uploaded. Our experience is that for a ready to catalog 1 hour of recording, it will take you about 3-4 hours to record, edit and produce a finished recording, depending on the difficulty of the text and the amount of editing required. The organization or individual approving community service hours will have to institute its own procedures for accepting/verifying LibriVox volunteer time without any participation on our end.
Living Histories
Document history by creating a living history story. Have a casual discussion or set up an interview of someone who lived through a historical event. Learn beyond the books what it was really like to live during that time period and the impact it had on their life. The lessons to be learned are invaluable.
Senior centers, veteran centers, church groups or the dining room table are great places to get the conversations going. The StoryCorps app is a great way to guide you through documenting an oral history.
Project Linus
Our volunteers, known as “blanketeers,” provide new, handmade, washable blankets to be given as gifts to seriously ill and traumatized children, ages 0-18.
Always remember that blankets must be homemade with new fabric, washable, free of pins, and come from smoke-free environments due to allergy reasons. Volunteers are welcome to make blankets at home or come to our community meetings to help with blanket making.
Drop off/mail to locations: JoAnn Fabrics and Crafts, 2136 S. Queen Street, York, PA 17403 or Danner's Bernina Shoppe, 551 Beck Mill Rd., Hanover, PA
**If dropping off, please email Patti Dietz at projectblankets@hotmail.com.
Easy directions for students to make fleece blankets. The fabric should be 1 1/2 yards to 2 yards, 1 piece of fabric with NO knots and they can watch this youtube on how we make the blankets. How to make a NO SEW fleece blanket:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vEzen4G5n8&feature=share
Smile Card
Smile Card provides a smile to over 80 senior centers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Take a moment, all you need is a paper and pen. Submitted digital artwork will be added to a gallery so that senior shelters and hospitals can share it with their residents or patients. Email us a card, letter, poem, or other piece of artwork (in the form of a JPEG) to spread the joy and put a smile on someone's face. Join the effort to bring smiles to seniors.
Smithsonian Digital Transcription
Be a Smithsonian Digital Volunteer. Volunteers are needed to assist making historical documents and biodiversity data more readily available.Currently, registered volunteers are required to be 14 years of age or older. Students and teachers are always welcome to reach out to our team with questions or ideas for further collaboration, by emailing us at transcribe@si.edu.
UNMUTE
Calling all Kindergarten to 12th grade student musicians! Do you like to sing? Do you play an instrument? During the COVID-19 pandemic, come and join student musicians in Maryland, USA to share your love and music talents with senior residents in the Assisted Living facilities. All music levels and music genres are welcome! You can practice at home, perform, record your performance, and then send us the link to your performance video (ex: YouTube, Vimeo, TikTok, Instagram or simply place in the iCloud, Google Drive or Dropbox). We will consolidate into one playlist every week to be broadcasted at several Assisted Living facilities that have partnered with us.
To be considered for volunteering in our Virtual Concerts, all student volunteers and their parents/legal guardians must read, complete and e-sign our "Volunteer Release Permission and Waiver of Liability Agreement", which is a document that is included at the end of our sign-up form here.
Words of Thanks
Amid this COVID-19 pandemic, we should all take a moment to thank our healthcare workers. They are working on the front lines, helping fight this disease! Words of Thanks is a program that allows US residents from any state to write various types of "thank you" letter to healthcare workers in their area.
Zooniverse
The Zooniverse is the world’s largest and most popular platform for people-powered research. This research is made possible by volunteers — hundreds of thousands of people around the world who come together to assist professional researchers. Zooniverse research results in new discoveries, datasets useful to the wider research community, and many publications. The main ways of volunteering with us are helping us with classifications on data, being a beta tester on projects we've yet to launch, and being a moderator for a project.
Volunteers under the age of 16 are required to register with parent/guardian's email address.