Micro-Volunteering?

With the recent horrific disaster in Haiti, it is so beautiful to see the outpouring of help, prayers, donations, and humanitarian efforts being extended to those poor people who find their lives forever changed and a long road ahead before life is even bearable.

Right before the holidays, I stumbled upon this group that enables the busiest of people to volunteer in their spare minutes of their day. Minutes? Really?? YES! The Extraordinaries has invented micro-volunteering! All of those minutes in your day that you are waiting in line or in the doctor's office, at the café or in a traffic jam that has turned the freeway into a parking lot (well, maybe that one only if you are in the passenger's seat) and you are texting your friends, browsing the internet, checking your emails from your phone, could be put to use helping worthy causes AND making you feel good about having lent a hand! During that waiting time you could:

• Translate an organization's website into a foreign language
• Record locations of potholes for municipalities
• Identify birds for the Cornell Lab of Ornithology
• Review congressional bills for hidden pork
• Fact check for reporters

You might find it more interesting to:

• Tag photographs for museums and collections
• Take photographs for collections
  
• Map outdated playgrounds for KaBoom
• Create your own mission that others can participate in

Whatever you choose to do, don't think that a couple of minutes won't make a difference. If 100 people each had 5 minutes to donate, that is over a full day's work that has just been used to help others. Multiply that by thousands---what might be done with all of that time?! It's astounding to think about it.



If you want to do more to help the Haitian people, help them find missing people. Find out more information about this on The Extraordinaires blog.

If you have a mobile phone or travel with a laptop, please consider signing up with this incredible organization and help make a difference in a way that appeals to you in tiny increments of time. If everyone does a little, a lot can be accomplished!

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