[saxonww]

Probably not. It would certainly be exceptional if anyone actually has this in an employment contract. People are bringing this sort of thing up because of vague language in their employment contract or employee handbook that doesn't explicitly list every allowed/disallowed activity. To put it another way: "It doesn't say I can do this, so it must mean that I can't." It's... not a reasonable interpretation, IMO.

No one is going to prevent you from volunteering at a soup kitchen unless you're trying to do it during normal working hours when your employer expects you to be working for them. And in that scenario, lots of employers in the US actually have additional PTO specifically for doing charitable work for some number of hours per year, i.e. you can do it during work hours and get paid for it.