“Helping Hands is a nonprofit public meeting place that connects volunteers in your community with people who are sheltering in place or otherwise cannot leave their homes.”

Strangers helping strangers? For free? During a pandemic? It’s a big idea, and quite an altruistic one. 

A community-based pandemic-relief delivery service is an idea that Jeff Miller, Head of Business Development at Uber, thought up and quickly took action on. The idea not only caught on at Uber, but spread rapidly through the tech community, rallying software and business developers to help build and market this platform.

Help is on the way!

As we know, there are ten of thousands of doctors, nurses, delivery drivers, farmers, public servants, and service workers on the front lines working tirelessly to heal and support those directly impacted by COVID-19. For those of us not on the front lines, we know the best way for us to stop the spread of the virus is to stay home and protect our community’s most vulnerable.

That’s where Helping Hands comes in—a nonprofit profit organization dedicated to serving those most vulnerable to COVID-19. Helping Hands connects at-risk community members with local volunteers for support with critical errands like grocery shopping and pharmacy pick-ups, enabling them to stay home and safe. 

They’ve built their platform with scale in mind. It can work anywhere in the country, so long as there are volunteers signed up and people requesting support through the website.

Pedro Muller, GM of Startup Initiatives at ZenDesk and recent Santa Cruz New Tech presenter, heard about Helping Hands from coworkers and was on-board right away.

“I’m part of the business development team,” Muller says. “We focus on getting volunteers into the platform; we have more than 1,000 in less than a couple of weeks.”

While Helping Hands is a national nonprofit, Pedro Muller is focused on Bay Area outreach. 

“It’s a creative approach to provide technology to amplify the power of community,” Muller says.

Right now, Helping Hands is web-based, but they are setting up a call center right now, so that people without reliable internet access or computer knowledge can use the support of this totally free assistance system, across the digital divide. How cool is that?!

What can we do to mobilize in Santa Cruz County? 

• Spread the word that Helping Hands exists!

  • Businesses: Include in your email distribution, social media posts, or even a spotlight on your website. 

  • Helping Hands has provided suggested copy to make marketing and promotion super easy.

    • Tag Helping Hands in social media:

      • Facebook @findhelpinghands

      • Instagram @helpinghands_community

      • Twitter @hh_community

      • LinkedIn @helping-hands-community

      • Use the hashtag #helpinghandscommunity

  • Share this printable flyer for physical and digital posting. (Remember that so much of our older and more rural community doesn’t have access to online marketing channels—physical posters do still work!)

  • Share it with seniors and other at-risk individuals in your network who may need some help.

  • Share it with healthy people who can volunteer to help a largely offline demographic in need. 

  • Sign up to be a delivery volunteer (if you are healthy and not at-risk).

Do you have tech or business skills to contribute? The Helping Hands team welcomes people who can help build and maintain the online community. Contact them at joinus@helpinghands.community.

If you have any questions about Helping Hands, or if you’d like to get more involved, get in touch on their website.