I didn’t do it out of loneliness, but I spent a few years volunteering at a science museum for kids. For anyone curious, it’s called OMSI and it’s in Portland, Oregon.

I had the time of my life. Everyone who volunteered there was so sweet and fun to work with. And it’s always really cool to see kids getting to experiment with science-y stuff and watch their tiny minds explode as they try to figure out what’s happening.

Soup kitchens are also pretty fun, and there’s also a cool organization called Donate Life that works as an advocacy group for organ donation. I got to volunteer for some really fun events like big walks and the Portland pride festival and even the Rose City Comic-Con. People are sometimes a bit rude because they have a lot of misconstrued notions about organ donation but in general it was a lot of fun.

As a former bike mechanic I’ll throw this out there: you can probably get foam insulation tubes for free, or at least cheaper than pool noodles, by just going into your local bike store and asking if they’ll spare some insulation. Bikes are shipped in that stuff, and we would only ever reuse a small fraction of it.

I usually filled a big trash can with all that packing material every week. I’d rather just give it to someone who would use it.