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hearts4hands

Volunteer

All you need is paper and something colorful.

Anyone can help. Draw a card at your kitchen table, run a bake sale, write a story, or start a chapter at your school. Log what you do and we'll keep track of your hours.

Log your hoursHow to make a card

Ways to help

Four ways in

Pick one, pick all of them, or start with whichever is closest to your kitchen table.

The main event

How to make a card

There's no wrong way to do this. But a few small things make a card much better to open from a hospital bed.

Yes please

  • Lots of color. Fill the paper corner to corner — bright beats tidy.
  • Something to look at twice: a joke, a maze, a tiny animal hiding in the corner.
  • A short, warm note. Two sentences is plenty.
  • Your first name at the bottom, and your age if you want to.

Please skip

  • Glitter. Hospitals ask us not to send it, and it gets everywhere.
  • “Get well soon.” Some patients are in treatment a long time, and it can land like a deadline.
  • Anything naming a specific illness or treatment.
  • Religious messages — we can't know what each family believes.
  • Your address, phone number, email, or last name.

None of these are rules to trip you up. They're just what hospitals have asked us for.

What you need

  • Paper or card stock — construction paper is great
  • Crayons, markers, or colored pencils
  • An envelope, once your cards are done

That's the whole list. If you don't have card stock, folded printer paper works fine.

How to send it

  1. 1. Photograph your finished cards. A phone photo on a table is perfect.
  2. 2. Upload the photo with your hours in the form below.
  3. 3. We'll email you the current mailing address, and you pop them in the post.

Please wait for that email before mailing anything — the address changes depending on which hospital we're delivering to next.

Recognition

We send you a certificate

Plenty of students volunteer with us for a school service requirement. Here's the record you can hand in.

Here's how it works. You log your hours honestly and upload a photo of what you made. An adult on our team checks it. Approved hours go into a running total on your account, and whenever you need it, you can ask us for a certificate.

The certificate names you, the hours you volunteered, and the dates they cover — so a teacher or an admissions office can see exactly what it's for. Each hour is only ever counted on one certificate, so nothing can be claimed twice.

It comes from us, Hearts4Hands. We're not a government awards body and don't claim to be — this is our own record of work we actually saw and checked.

  • 1

    Log it

    Hours, cards, and a photo, from your account.

  • 2

    We check it

    A real person reviews every entry.

  • 3

    Ask for it

    Request a certificate whenever you need one.

Sign up · log hours

Tell us what you did

Hours are logged from your account, so we know whose they are and can put your name on a certificate.

Logging hours needs an account

We can only certify hours we can tie to a person — that's what lets us put your name, your hours and the dates on a certificate you can hand to a school.

Create an accountI already have one

It takes a minute, and you only do it once. Just want to send us a message? No account needed for that.

Trouble with the form? Email us at hello@hearts4hands.org and we'll log it by hand.

Questions

Things people ask

  • Do I need to be a certain age?

    No. We have volunteers in elementary school and volunteers in college. If you're under 18, check with a parent or guardian before you sign up, and ask them to help with the mailing part.

    If the volunteer is under 13, a parent, guardian, or teacher fills the form in instead. We don't ask for a young child's name, email, or school at all — the grown-up is our contact, and the cards still count. Pick “Under 13” in the form and it switches over on its own.

  • Can I volunteer from outside the US?

    Yes. Our volunteers are students all over the world. Making cards, fundraising, writing, and outreach all work from anywhere. Volunteer awards have their own eligibility rules, though — email us at hello@hearts4hands.org and we'll walk through them with you before you count on one.

  • How long until my hours are approved?

    A person reviews every submission, so it isn't instant. Give it a couple of weeks. If you have a school deadline coming up, say so in the notes and we'll try to get to yours first.

  • What if I don't have a printer or scanner?

    A phone photo is perfect. Lay your cards out on a table, get them all in the frame, and upload that. Nothing needs to be printed to volunteer with us.

  • Can my school club participate?

    Yes, and it's our favorite way to do this. One person can submit on behalf of the group, or everyone can log their own hours separately — whichever makes award tracking easier for you. Email us and we'll send a plan for running a card drive.

  • What happens to my email address?

    We use it to confirm your submission, send you the mailing address, and answer questions about your hours. That's all. We don't sell it or sign you up for anything you didn't ask for.

Still wondering something?

Ask us anything