How to Volunteer and Do Community Service During the Coronavirus Pandemic
COVID-19 Series The Princeton Review
Hi, everyone.
I’m Rob Franek, Editor-in-Chief at The Princeton Review, and I want to talk to you about an
important part of your high school experience—and future college applications—that you may
be missing out on due to Covid-19: volunteer experience.
First of all, I want to say that you should not worry about not getting to do community
service right now.
Students across the globe are in the same situation as you are.
You will not be penalized.
That being said, you may enjoy service work and lament the dearth of opportunities to
engage in it.
And if that’s the case, here are a few ways you can engage in service that helps others,
remotely—online, from home.
Let’s start with Zooniverse.
It is an awesome online platform that can connect you with volunteer opportunities,
like helping to categorize research results with real-world impact.
We’ll include a link to their site in the comments.
In fact, let me say upfront that we’ll include links to ALL of the sites and organizations
I’m going to talk about.
One of the projects you can work on through Zooniverse is called “Bash the Bug,” and
its aim is to help fight antibiotic resistance.
If you volunteer for this project, you’ll look at circular wells to help identify which
antibiotics are effective against tuberculosis.
Your input, together with that of an expert, will improve the accuracy and consistency
of the measurements in this large-scale project.
You could also work on the “Anti-Slavery Manuscripts” project from the Boston Public
Library.
For that, you’ll be reading digitized handwritten documents and transcribing them so that others
can readily use the documents in research.
There are other great projects too, including Planet Four—where you’ll explore the surface
and weather on Mars—and the University of Wyoming Raccoon Project, for which you’ll
help identify and study raccoons.
The point I want you to take away from this is: There are a LOT of ways you can contribute
to learning and research in a variety of fields—even as you’re social distancing at home.
Another great site for finding opportunities is the United Nations Volunteers program,
where you can find—and DO—things to promote global peace and development.
For another site that’ll connect you to a variety of online volunteer opportunities,
check out Catchafire, where the volunteer opportunities range from social media content
creation to design material development and beyond.
The Smithsonian Transcription Center has lots of options for digital volunteers to work
on making texts more accessible to researchers globally.
There’s also Project Gutenberg, which allows you to contribute to academic research by—among
other things—proofreading e-books.
You can also volunteer with Translators Without Borders, either as a translator (if you’re
fluent in another language) or in some other capacity, like graphic designer.
If you’re over 18, you can volunteer as a Crisis Counselor for the Crisis Text Line.
As a Crisis Counselor, you’ll answer texts from people in crisis, bringing them—in
the words of Crisis Text Line—”from a hot moment to a cool calm through active listening,
collaborative problem solving, and safety planning.”
You probably also have local opportunities to volunteer remotely—for your school, or
for a food bank, or for another organization that could use your brainpower.
The incredible opportunities I’ve just talked about are just a sampling of what you can
accomplish.
So go find a project that allows you to contribute—and find fulfillment—at this exceptionally challenging
time.
If you’ve found an online volunteering opportunity that I haven’t mentioned, please leave a
comment so others can get involved, too.
You’ll get through this—we will all get through this—and the challenges of this
moment will be made better because of folks like you.
Subscribe to our channels for all the latest updates about Covid-19 and its effect on exams,
admissions, and more.
See you here Monday.