Works For Me Wednesdays: How To Volunteer When You Don’t Have the Time

I’ve always been a firm believer of paying it forward. I was a girlscout throughout grade school. In high school, some of my Saturdays consisted of waking up at 5am to help peel 500 potatoes for the local soup kitchen. In college, I spent a lot of time as a youth leader for the youth ministry, and once, I helped fix a home for a very deserving family through Habitat for Humanity. In my few years as an Army wife, I spent a lot of time with the Family Readiness Group, a nonprofit organization that helps families when their Soldiers are deployed.

Nowadays, being a working mom doesn’t leave me with very much time to dedicate somewhere outside of my work and family. Physically, anyway…

Thankfully, there’s plenty of opportunities for virtual volunteering! In this day and age, you’d be surprised how much you could do from home and over the internet. One of the organizations I’ve worked with recently, Youth Technology & Education Center in St. Louis Missouri, asked me to design a postcard to thank all their sponsors and contributors.

All it took were a few emails to get that simple sense of contribution -- as little as it seems.

I found them through Volunteer Match. It’s easy to search by location, by areas of interest, by groups and you can filter for virtual opportunities. But of course, if you’re so inclined to volunteer the old-fashion way, there’s plenty of opportunities for those too!