Community service is an easy way to build up a portfolio of extracurriculars that can be a supporting document to attend college. In fact, many college admissions officers are looking for students with great resumes of extracurricular activities, along with strong grades and excellent test scores.
Thankfully, there are dozens of organizations that allow high school students to perform online community service. If you want to build up your extracurricular portfolio activities, you can try to pick up one of the community service ideas that we’ll show in our post below!
1) Be My Eyes
Be My Eyes is one of great online ideas that allows the high student school to perform community service for those who are interested in the health industry. Through a video app, it connects volunteers with the blind and low-vision people. It aims to provide visual assistance with everything from checking expiration dates to differentiate colors to reading instructions.
2)Translators without borders
This is a perfect organization for high school students who have fluency in a second language. They can perform community service virtually by translating texts for various international organizations that are focused on health, crisis relief and education.
Currently, Translators without Borders has translated over 80 million words. Reportedly, every year, volunteer translators help more than 200 aid organizations with a wide range of projects, including UNICEF, Oxfam and Doctors Without Borders.
3) American Red Cross
The high school students can also perform community service through the American Red Cross that has thousands of virtual volunteer chances available from providing blood collection support to serving on Disaster Action Team.
4) Love For Our Elders
In fact, there are so many elderly people who suffer from loneliness, as the current Yale student Jacob Cramer discovered, when he volunteered at his local senior living community. He began Love For Our Elders as a result that produces letters for seniors who need encouragement. Well, the students will be able to earn verified volunteer hours by starting a chapter at their school, writing letters or hosting a letter drive.
5) Missing Maps
Missing Maps is such a collaborative project established by the American and British Red Cross, the Doctors Without Borders and the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap team. This project enlists volunteers from around the world who use satellite images to put digitally uncharted territories on the map.
6) Tarjimly
This is an app which allows high school students to put their second-language skills to work by providing on-demand translation services for asylees, refugees and immigrants. Furthermore, this is a non-profit organization with a free app which connects immigrants and asylum seekers with multilingual volunteers who provide on-demand linguistic support via live chat.
7) Bookshare
Bookshare focuses on creating reading more accessible to people who have reading barriers such as learning disabilities, dyslexia, physical disabilities and visual impairment. Bookshare will need volunteers to scan in new books and proofread scanned files when they continue to improve their collection with a library of over 900,000 titles.
8) TeensGive
For students who want to try teaching, they can use TeensGive that can make tutoring easy for them in grades 9 – 12. This virtual tool actually removes the time-consuming and often complicated travel component of tutoring and also pairing students with online tutors.
The high school students can also break down barriers by targeting the communities which most need help, such as homeless children, underserved schools and former gang members trying to catch up.
9) Learns to Be
Through ‘Learns to Be’ (another non-profit tutoring platform), the high school students can volunteer their time to teach elementary, middle or high school students one-on-one with subjects that they need help with most.
10) School on Wheels
School on Wheels allows the high school students to have a great opportunity to teach people living in shelters, vehicles, motels, group foster homes and on the street. This teaching platform is used for volunteers aged 16 to 18 living in Southern California.
In fact, this tutoring platform has been used to fix an enormous problem in twenty children in California who are homeless. Well, Volunteers will work digitally with students ranging from kindergarten to 12th grade.
11) Learning Ally
Just like School on Wheels, Learning Ally is also a non-profit organization which offers high-quality audiobooks and learning solutions for those who are struggling to read from kindergarten through high school.
When teaching, the volunteers will be able to use their voices to be the narrator of audiobooks to assist students overcome obstacles in education.
12) Citizen Scholar
Among volunteers, this is an interesting online community service opportunity for history buffs who would like to work with the Smithsonian Institute. Along with records from the Smithsonian’s scientific collection, this helps in the transcription of historic documents and papers of prominent Americans to create them more accessible to researchers and the public.
13) Teenangels
This is an awesome online learning platform that allows the high school students to run programs in school which teach teachers, parents and children about the safe use of the internet. This platform is intended for students aged 13 to 18 who dream of having a job in cybersecurity or are simply interested in computers.
14) DemocracyLab
DemocracyLab seems to help connect technology projects which better society with skilled volunteers. The students who have great experience to work with technology can volunteer with thousands of tech-for-good projects to benefit a variety of industries including education, civil infrastructure and the environment.
15) By The People
This is an online volunteer chance in which they can help transcribe essential documents belonging to the Library of Congress. In this case, the students will be able to create and review transcriptions to assist people look for, access and also find those historical documents.
Okay those are 15 great organizations and platforms you can choose to perform community service for high school students. Well, it’s important for you to take community service, especially if you have a plan to attend college. Of course, the colleges will be more concerned about your participation in community service activities which you’re passionate about and can also show tangible success or results from.
A bookworm and researcher especially related to law and citizenship education. I spend time every day in front of the internet and the campus library.
