Gift Economics and an S.O.S. App

Every once in awhile, I get into conversations with my friends and family members about the fundamental desires that motivate them and one theme that keeps coming up is helping people in need. In fact, out of all of the needs that I have seen on this planet, the one that has a gaping hole in our technological marketplace is the ability to help others. Unless you are a member of a church or you volunteer for a relief effort during a time of crisis or go abroad to help with one charitable organization or another, there are very limited opportunities to either help people in your local community in an organized manner or to request help in your time of need.

There are some agencies, don't get me wrong, and if you know where to look, you can find them on the local level: Habitat for Humanity, Food Not Bombs, Book 'Em and Critical Mass are just a few agencies locally that I can think of that actively strive to help people in one form or another that are more than happy to take volunteers on a rotating basis.

Anyway, why couldn't we develop an imgur-like app for our cell phones that linked to facebook and allowed people to A). submit requests for help and B). browse local requests for help in order to see on a map where their help might be needed within walking distance of their house?

We could have a user submitted section where requests are upvoted and downvoted and each local 100 mile area surrounding a major city could have a "front-page" where the top voted needs are populated on an interactive map. You could chat with supplicants in real time to offer them advice or to let them know help is on the way. Based on what I've heard from people, they would really like to help out and they just don't know how to, wouldn't this be a step in that direction?