FYP Volunteer Guide San FranciscoEast BayPeninsulaSouth Bay
The East Bay has more places to grow food, restore a creek or repair a toaster in public than anywhere else in the region, and a lot of the organizations doing that work are small enough that your Saturday actually registers. It also has the big anchors: two county food banks, the regional parks, and the shelters and senior programs that run on volunteer labor year round.
Each entry says what you would actually do and what the organization asks of you. One-time means you can book a shift this week. Commitment means orientation, usually a background check, and a schedule you keep. Everything here is open to individuals.
Food
Alameda County Community Food Bank, Oakland. Sort and pack produce in the warehouse, load partner agency vehicles, help at neighborhood distributions. Scheduled shifts for individuals and groups; the heavy-lifting shifts start at 7:30 in the morning. Sign up on their schedule page.
Berkeley Food Network, West Berkeley. Stock the pantry, check in members, pack home-delivery boxes, sort recovered produce, drive the van. An orientation video after your inquiry form, then regular shifts, with some one-time events. Accepts school and work service hours.
Food Bank of Contra Costa and Solano, Concord. Warehouse and distribution shifts on an online calendar. Create an account and book.
Alameda Food Bank, Alameda Point. Pack and sort food, check in clients, run distribution, direct traffic. Drop-in shifts Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday; after three you can become a regular. Watch the orientation video and sign the waiver first. Ages 16 and up.
Tri-City Volunteers Food Bank, Fremont. Food bank shifts booked through their portal after a short handbook and consent form. Ages 14 and up with an adult, 16 and up alone.
White Pony Express, Concord. Sort rescued fresh groceries for quality before they go out, or drive pickups through the Food Rescue app. Shifts through their portal.
Monument Crisis Center, Concord's Monument corridor, with Pittsburg distributions. Bag and sort food, distribute essentials, help with senior programs including bilingual bingo, or tutor ESL. Full shifts booked one to two months ahead; warehouse work lifts 25 to 50 pounds.
Housing and neighbors without homes
The East Oakland Collective, Eastmont. Assemble and distribute food and supplies to unhoused neighbors through Feed the Hood, drive distribution caravans, repair bikes, survey encampments. One-time help with supplies and drives, plus trained lead roles for people who keep coming back.
Bay Area Rescue Mission, Richmond's Iron Triangle. Welcome and serve guests, teach life-skills classes, help with job prep, support drives and events. Their own categories are volunteer once, volunteer regularly, or come with a group.
St. Mary's Center, West Oakland. Serve Sunday dinner to low-income seniors, or take on painting, repair and garden projects. Sunday dinner is a one-time-friendly sign-up on SignUp Genius.
Habitat for Humanity East Bay/Silicon Valley, build sites across the East Bay plus the ReStores. Home construction on build days, retail and warehouse help at the ReStore, office support. One-time or ongoing, full or half-day shifts, ages 16 and up.
Creeks, shoreline, farms and parks
Save The Bay, Martin Luther King Jr. Regional Shoreline in Oakland and other Bay sites. Transplant native seedlings and pull invasives at shoreline restoration sites. Three-hour calendar events, no ongoing commitment, kids welcome with supervision. The Oakland site is reachable by transit.
East Bay Regional Park District, parks across both counties. Habitat restoration, shoreline cleanups, trail maintenance, garden work, plus trained docent and trail safety roles. One-time events on the event search, ongoing programs with their own applications.
Golden Gate Bird Alliance, Arrowhead Marsh in Oakland and the least tern reserve in Alameda. Monthly invasive removal, native planting and cleanup, and tern habitat prep. Most restoration days are drop-in with no RSVP. Email the program contacts on the page, and note the page itself is overdue for an update, so confirm dates.
Friends of Sausal Creek, Dimond, Fruitvale and Montclair. Propagate natives at the nursery, remove invasives along the creek, steward trails. Scheduled workdays, no commitment. Fill in the individual form.
Urban Tilth, Richmond. Garden maintenance, farm work and greenway cleanup on a monthly rotation: second Saturdays at the Greenway Community Garden, third at Unity Park, fourth at the North Richmond Farm, 10 to 1. Pre-registration required. Welcomes community service hours.
The Watershed Project, Richmond and Contra Costa creeks. Community science, including creek water quality and storm sampling, and native plant restoration. One-time event or a regular thing, your choice. Join the twice-monthly opportunity email.
Planting Justice, East Oakland nursery on 105th Avenue and the Mother Farm in El Sobrante. Nursery and farm work, and permaculture skills along the way. Drop-in or recurring; East Oakland Monday through Saturday 10 to 3:30 with a few days' notice, Mother Farm Tuesdays and second Saturdays.
Ecology Center, Berkeley, plus the Berkeley farmers' markets. Market booth setup and sales, recycling and climate outreach, mailings, events, photography. Not drop-in: an application and an agreed timeframe, from a few days to an ongoing position.
Reading, tutoring and young people
Oakland Public Library Second Start, Main Library downtown. One-on-one tutoring of adults in reading and writing. Tutor training, then a six-month minimum, 18 and up.
Berkeley READS, West Branch. One-on-one adult literacy tutoring. Free training, then twice-weekly sessions for six months. Call 510-981-6299.
Reading Partners, school sites in Oakland and other East Bay districts. Weekly 45-minute reading sessions with an elementary student. A consistent weekly time, orientation, background check, ages 14 and up. Choose "SF Bay Area" on the page.
Chapter 510, downtown Oakland. Writing mentors and illustrators work one-on-one with young people to draft, revise and publish poems, stories and books. TB test, background check and training; an honorarium is offered and can be waived.
CASA of Alameda County, San Leandro. Office and event support for the court-appointed advocate program for foster youth, one to five hours a week, with a fingerprint check.
Civic life and repair
League of Women Voters of Oakland. Voter registration at community events, observing public meetings, communications, youth civic partnerships. From micro-contributions to a few hours a week.
League of Women Voters Berkeley Albany Emeryville. Tabling, attending and reporting on government meetings, issue teams on climate, criminal justice and healthcare, event photography. Ongoing roles and occasional help.
Repair events in Alameda County, Oakland. StopWaste keeps the calendar of fixer events where volunteers help neighbors repair things instead of tossing them: a monthly mending circle on first Fridays at the Oakland Asian Cultural Center, a bike repair workshop on first Sundays at The Bikery, the Fixit Clinic on Tuesday nights at Omni Commons, and a repair advice clinic on third Wednesdays. Fixer sign-up varies by host.
Seniors and health
SOS Meals on Wheels, Fruitvale hub, with San Leandro, Castro Valley and Fremont. Deliver meals on two-hour routes, prep in the kitchen mornings, or help in the warehouse. Two-thirds of their deliveries are made by volunteers. Flexible scheduling including adopt-a-route.
Meals on Wheels of Alameda County, Oakland, countywide delivery. Meal delivery to homebound seniors, more than 2,700 meals a day. Interest form on the page.
Berkeley Free Clinic, West Berkeley. Lay volunteers staff the medical, dental, lab, peer counseling and street medicine sections; no prior knowledge required. Annual training cycles and a long-term commitment. Check the page for which sections are recruiting.
Animals
East Bay SPCA, Oakland and Dublin. Animal care, enrichment, adoption events, medical support. Six months or 50 hours minimum, after an online info session and an in-person orientation.
Berkeley Humane, Berkeley, plus thrift shops on Solano and Ashby. Foster, thrift shop, adoption events, clinic support. Orientation required, but many roles have no minimum. Ages 12 and up with a parent.
Oakland Animal Services, the city shelter. Dog walking, cat and rabbit care, foster, transport, translation, adoption bios. Intro video, interest form, a 101 session, then training; 50 hours over six months. Transport and event roles have lighter forms.
Arts and culture
Oakland Museum of California, Lake Merritt. Welcome visitors, host galleries, facilitate school programs, garden, help at cultural events. Register on Shiftboard, attend an info session, background check; commitments vary by role.
If you'd rather someone else pick
HandsOn Bay Area, calendar of one-off projects across the region, mostly nights and weekends.
Bay Area Volunteer Information Center, a directory of more than a thousand opportunities you can filter by East Bay and by cause.
Not listed: Repair Cafe Berkeley and Transition Berkeley, whose sites we could not reach; Lake Merritt Institute, whose volunteer page was not current; and the Volunteer Center of the East Bay, which no longer appears to operate.
Know an East Bay organization we missed, or spot something here that has changed? Tell us. We would rather fix it than be wrong in public.
Last verified: September 2026.
