Help Needed – First Volunteer!

Shannon at All About Shannon has offered to assist with my Help Needed endeavor. Much thanks to her!

Recently I have been trying to help a few people find assistance that have posted on the St. Louis Craigslist. One of them is a 24 year old Bosnian immigrant with an ailing mother. I really hope he is able to find the help he needs. If you would like to help in any way with promoting and expanding Help Needed, just let me know.

Shannon has also shared another excellent online charity resource called Wish Upon a Hero. This organization is similar to Modest Needs which I posted about last. Wish Upon a Hero allows people to post a wish, no matter how small or large. People willing to grant, or partially grant, a wish are called Heroes. Heroes can come in the form of individuals, charities, or corporations.

Some examples of current wishes are “for baby girl clothing and a crib, ” “for $1 donations to save my house,” and “for a better Christmas for my 4 kids.” These are all small requests, and by working together we can make a big difference in the lives of many people. Please check out Wish Upon a Hero!

Help Needed

The eventual goal of my charity endeavors is to create an organization which I hope to dub Help Needed. There is currently a website called Help Needed, but it appears to be defunct, and I don’t get the impression that they have legal claim to the name (I hope at least).

Anyhow, aside from the name, the purpose of this organization would be to link those in need with available services and organizations that can assist them. Many people have needs that are handled by existing entities, but the problem is that they have no idea this is the case, or how to contact these entities if they are aware. Help Needed would essentially be a directory service that makes a connection between those in need and those that can help. Some research may need to be done on a per case basis to determine what services are available.

In addition to the basic service of making this connection, I would also like Help Needed to have a framework in place to provide direct assistance, either in the form of monetary aid or volunteer time. This would be for situations where no existing assistance is available, or where an entity exists to service a need, but is unable to at the time. This would obviously involve a layer of protection to identify and validate legitimate needs.

Help Needed will undoubtedly start small and scale up as possible. It will require many, many volunteers who are willing to do the research and actually assist those with needs. I eventually see the service assistants being paid positions, but until the organization has a solid cash flow, they will need to be volunteers.

I don’t expect to be able to formally set up this organization for several years, but in the meantime I hope to be able to do what good I can. If someone comes to me and would like help finding assistance, or if I can identify someone who needs help, I will do my best to help them find available services. I would welcome help from those who might be interested. Ideally we could build an informal aid network that could grow and transition into a formal organization.

So, with all that said I make two calls:

I call all of you who are interested in this idea and willing to help to leave a comment and let me know.

I also call all of you who need help finding help to let me know. If you aren’t comfortable outlining your situation publicly here on my blog, just leave a note that you need help and I will provide you a way to contact me privately.

I will undoubtedly be talking more on this subject in the future, so check back for more information!