Steve Taylor: Connecting with those in need online

I approached the camper trailer like a cop in the movies, flat to the weathered siding using a slow drag-step with my head on a swivel. I was here to meet the woman inside, but didn’t want to get jumped trying to help somebody supposedly in need.

When the thin door opened and a smiling middle-aged woman walked out, I relaxed, figuring I could take her in a fistfight if it came to that. I’m sure she looked at me thinking the same thing.

Rita and I met online a week earlier at “2hands.org,” a site for “People in need. People who can help” according to their banner.

I found 2Hands while trolling the website looking for firewood. I am somewhat jaded by seemingly pointless volunteer experiences and news of charity scams du jour. We bleeding hearts haul a dumpster full of trash out of the river, and it’s filthy three weeks later.

Just last month, former Subway spokesman Jared Fogle and his “business” partner were accused by law enforcement of using most of the $100K a year raised for the nonprofit “Jared Foundation” as an ATM for pajama parties with kids.

How can a guy with a soft heart give back and not be a chump?

2Hands is an “online assistance platform,” according to Jon Bishop, who founded the cyberpleading site more than a decade ago in Spokane, Wash. Now, there have been more than 10 million visits to the site from people in every state and Canada. After entering the name of your city, browse the listings for something that grabs your heart; but hold onto your wallet. As you might guess, most posts ask for money – like this one in Fresno last week:

“Our (PG&E) was shut off today because it is in the name of my husband who is currently in jail for domestic violence charges. I was unable to make payment arrangements because im not on the account and I cannot afford to turn it back on is there anyone who can help.”

The real crushers are like this older posting from Modesto:

“Hi my grandson turns 5yrs this weekend ... My daughter and I are upon hard times just like most of the people here. We are looking for help to get him a couple of gifts. He loves legos we just ask that they be clean or easily cleanable they don’t have to be new.” Ouch.

Rita’s post came from Riverbank, close to home. And she was only asking for help fixing a leak on the roof of her trailer. I selected the ID number on the posting, registered for free, and joined 6,000 other “angels” who have connected with others for more than 30,000 “assists,” according to the site.

I gamely climbed on top of her trailer that day, but couldn’t find any holes. So I made plans to return later with some caulking. Rita and I talked for awhile and I learned she was an in-home supportive caregiver with terrible knee pain. She considers herself a hard worker but is new to the area. When the trailer started leaking somebody told her about 2hands. Still, she was worried about inviting online strangers around.

We hit it off.

2hands is one of several direct-connection sites. Another is volunteermatch.org, which says, “We bring good people and good causes together” and the unapologetic begslist.com, a self-described virtual panhandling site. Unlike these, “2Hands is not, and never will be, a nonprofit organization,” Bishop said. He and three volunteers (his daughters and wife) run the site on “about $400 a month for hosting” funded from the ads on the home page. How can they be trusted? They don’t take donations.

Charitable giving and volunteerism are doing fine, as the U.S. volunteer rate stayed about the same at around 25 percent for 2013-14, according the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That means about 62.8 million people volunteered through or for an organization at least once in those years. Americans gave an estimated $358.38 billion to charity in 2014, the highest level in Giving USA’s 60th annual report.

The difference might be the one-to-one, personal connection you don’t always get on a cleanup day or from scratching out a check. I didn’t end up fixing Rita’s roof, turns out the air-conditioning unit was kaput. But she came to my church a couple of times in the year since and we’ve kept in touch. Online help-matching can be the modern equivalent of that cousin you called when you were desperate and running short on something.

Now, you’re that cousin.

This story was originally published September 12, 2015 at 2:55 AM with the headline "Steve Taylor: Connecting with those in need online."