Volunteer from home in the comfort of your P.J.’s!

(Sumaiya Malik, Good News Gazette) Mike Bright is asking you to help change the world with just a few minutes of your time. You don’t have to leave the house. You can even stay in your p.j.’s if you want. His website, Help From Home, provides a list of over 500 microvolunteering opportunities that take less than 30 minutes of your time, with most taking just a fraction of that.

46-year old Bright was already an active volunteer in his community when several years ago he wondered what else he could do in his spare time at home. He came across an opportunity to write letters to sick children -- something he enjoyed doing. Still, this was not taking up too much of his time, so he wondered what other opportunities were out there. “I thought they were volunteering opportunities because you were devoting part of your time helping out some people, albeit maybe for 10 seconds, a minute, maybe two minutes, maybe 10 minutes,” said Bright during a recent phone interview. "But at the same time you were still helping out people."

After scouring the internet for listings of similar microvolunteering opportunities, he came up empty. "And then I thought ‘well how do people know about these opportunities that are out there?’ If you don’t know they’re out there, then you’re not going to find them. And then I thought ‘if nobody’s doing it, then maybe I could do it.’ " And so Help From Home was launched about a year-and-a-half ago.

Help From Home is Bright’s labor of love, a passion that he devotes the bulk of his spare time to. He occasionally receives help from others (volunteers, of course!) when he doesn’t have the skill set or time to incorporate a new feature in a timely manner. Bright is clearly on to something, as Help From Home was recently selected as runner-up in a U.K. competition for community projects.

Opportunities to give of your time and talents abound on the site – everything from writing letters to sick children and the elderly, to adding an advertisement to your email signature or completing a survey that results in money being donated to a charitable cause, to a simple click of your mouse which triggers donations to charities paid for by advertisers, to making origami cranes for cancer patients (from the old Japanese tradition that 1,000 origami paper cranes bring good luck). You can even join researchers seeking the mysterious Loch Ness Monster, a.k.a. Nessie, by monitoring a webcam set up at Loch Ness. If you spot anything in the water you can click the "snapshot" button to submit a picture to researchers.

Mike Bright has made it easy for everyone to find opportunities to do good and give back, none of which require any long-term commitment. Do as few or as many as you like, as your schedule permits. Choose from the myriad advocacy, charity or green volunteer opportunities listed, or check out the "Quickie Volunteer Actions" section which allows you to identify opportunities based on how much time you have available. Bright has made it easy to follow Gandhi's appeal to "be the change you wish to see in the world," all from the comfort of your p.j.’s.