I think that volunteering can help with a lot more than just loneliness, including bridging gaps between different ideologies. I spent some time working for an

I think that volunteering can help with a lot more than just loneliness, including bridging gaps between different ideologies. I spent some time working for an urban tree planting group in my city. As you would expect a lot of the folks involved were green thumb forest ranger types, but a lot of them were not. A couple of the older Sierra club guys openly discussed issues with the modern global economy and its impact on the environment, stuff that might get you banned from Twitter these days. The machine shop guys who repaired our tree stakes were pretty "red state" but they liked those Sierra club old guys, and they also liked trees. I also remember talking to a young energy industry employee who knew a lot about green energy initiatives (and why they were taking so long to ramp up), and of course dyed in the wool vegans and forest ranger folks. But the fact that everyone was giving up their Saturdays together for a common goal gave everyone a little extra liberty to express their opinions and experiences, and of course the civility of face to face conversation helps bridge lots of gaps too.