Ways to Volunteer and Help Local Causes from Home
For your family, things may be slowly going back to normal. Before your schedules get too crazy, consider making volunteering a priority for your family. Here are some ways you can volunteer from home or opportunities to help while maintaining social distancing.
Send a Letter
Write notes, send pictures and create artworks to send to people who have been shut-in or isolated for months, like the elderly in nursing homes. Send thank you cards to firefighters, EMT, healthcare workers, postal workers and other essential workers who have continued to serve and work during this time. Check out Letters of Love for organizations to send letters to, or send letters and words of encouragement to staff at A.G. Rhodes.
Join a Service Organization
Pebble Tossers empowers and equips youth to lead through service. Join with an individual or family membership, and check out their ideas for serving at home here.
On June 20, support United Way of Greater Atlanta’s Annual Day of Action for the opportunity to serve virtually with nonprofit partners.
Donate Books
Help Children Read by donating baby, board, alphabet, numbers, shapes, rhyming, animal, story and picture books for pre-kindergarten ages, which go to Head Start programs and classrooms to educate children in low income families. Deliver to multiple locations around metro Atlanta, or you can schedule pickup.
Help Homelessness
To help Crossroads Community Ministries, donate money; items for hygiene kits, such as hand sanitizer, soap, bottled waters and deodorant; and sack lunch supplies, such as meat and cheese sandwiches, chips, fruit and granola bars.
Intown Collaborative Ministries is distributing four times more food than their standard distribution numbers, and they’re requesting peanut butter, canned vegetables and fruits, canned chicken, pasta sauce, milk and vienna sausages.
The amount of people SafeHouse Outreach is sheltering has more than doubled during this time. Donate money, or donate by shopping through Amazon or Kroger.
Make a donation to Nicholas House to help them meet the needs of homeless children and parents by providing housing, case management, food, rent assistance and more.
Donate to Love Beyond Walls to help those struggling with poverty and provide assistance and support to help the homeless become self-sufficient.
Help Atlanta Mission by donating clothing, commercially-prepared meals, packaged meats, fruit and vegetables, hand sanitizer, soap, wash clothes and more to help provide for the homeless.
Provide Gateway Center with hand sanitizer, hand soap, disinfectant wipes, tissue, masks and more, or donate money to help support those experiencing homelessness.
Plant a Garden
Order free seed packets from Alternative National Park Service to plant a garden and help save the pollinators. Choose between Black-Eyed Susan or Butterfly Milkweed packets.
Make Masks
Follow a face mask template to make masks to donate to medical professionals and other needy community members. Join in Sewing Masks for Area Hospitals, and pay attention to specific instructions hospitals have, like Emory Healthcare.
Need for Food
With each $1 you donate to Atlanta Community Food Bank, they can provide enough food for four meals. All gifts through June 30 will be doubled up to $50,000.
For $9 a day, Meals On Wheels Atlanta can provide a senior in need with breakfast and lunch.
Open Hand provides meals to those in need, and they’ve recently expanded their footprint to include middle and north Georgia. Donate or help deliver meals.
Atlanta Survival Program offers free grocery delivery to those impacted by the pandemic. Volunteer to drop off food, or donate money or food.
ATLFAMILYMEAL is committed to feeding, nurturing and supporting hospitality workers and their families experiencing hunger and joblessness during this time. Support them by donating money.
Giving Kitchen provides financial assistance to food service workers in crisis, and their COVID-19 resource page has sources and ways to help.
Tutoring Services
Become an academic coach and volunteer your knowledge to help students. UPchieve connects low-income high school students with volunteer coaches to assist in math.
Help Puppies and Kittens
Become a foster parent of an animal, or donate pet food, money and pet care supplies to help provide for cats and dogs. See more at Atlanta Humane Society, PAWS Atlanta or Humane Society of Northeast Georgia.
Support Moms and Kids
Helping Mamas accepts essential items for children birth to age 12 and maternity clothes. Donate diapers, pull-ups, wipes, clothes, bottles, pacifiers, books, hygiene items and more to help women and children in need.
