The Biggest Team at the Games Wears a Volunteer Badge
The 2028 Olympics will field about 15,000 athletes. The volunteer corps will be about four times that size. LA28 opened a registration of interest on November 6, 2025, for a volunteer program presented by Delta Air Lines, and on July 14, 2026 it opened applications for up to 60,000 Games-time volunteers.
Volunteers are the first person a visitor meets at the airport and the last one waving them out of the stadium. Carrying the torch is the most visible way for an ordinary person to take part in 2028. Volunteering is the most available one.
What Volunteers Do
LA28 has listed answering visitor questions and wayfinding, language interpretation, first aid, and administrative support. Past Games add more: athlete services in the Village, media operations, transport marshaling, ceremony support, accessibility assistance for the Paralympics, and the small jobs that keep 800 medal events on time across 49 venues.
At recent Games (these are norms, not published LA28 rules yet), volunteers have typically been 18 or older at Games time, committed to roughly ten or more shifts across the Olympic and Paralympic windows, and worked unpaid, receiving a uniform, meals on shift, and a close view of the Games.
How to Get In
One channel: volunteer.la28.org, where applications have been open since July 14, 2026. LA28 hasn't set a closing date, but it has promised at least seven days' notice before applications close. Nobody can sell you a volunteer slot, a "priority application," or a guaranteed role. Anyone charging money for access to Games volunteering is running a scam, the same kind that sells fake guaranteed torchbearer slots.
What you can do now:
- Apply now at volunteer.la28.org rather than waiting for the deadline notice.
- Build relevant experience. Games volunteer applications ask what you have done, not what you intend. Marathon aid stations, community events, language skills and first-aid certification all count.
- Plan for the commitment. The Games run July 14-30, 2028, with the Paralympics following. Shifts are real work at real hours.
Volunteering and the Torch
The volunteer corps and the torchbearer corps draw from the same people: the ones who show up for their city. Torchbearer nomination programs reward community service, which is why my own campaign treats running and serving as one story, done in public.
The relay will cross all 50 states before the volunteers take over at the venues. I want to carry the flame for one mile of it. If you'd back me, add your name to the nomination wall.
