Highschool Hack #2: 6 Reasons To Do Community Service During Holidays and Breaks.
Community service is a great way to help the public or an individual in need, while at the same time helping you to start making a mark on the world. Here are some of the benefits and perks that comes with community service as some persuasion:
1. SAVES TIME AND DECREASES STRESS- The school year is going to be more hectic and chaotic with assignments popping up randomly at the worst of times. Just do community service during the summer, seasonal breaks, and holidays, so that you can keep a float with your studies while at the same time being able to give community service projects your full focus, ready-for-this attitude, and 100%.
2. SCHOLARSHIPS- Some scholarships have a certain amount of community service hours as a requirement, having 100 hours on hand will work wonders with what you can be eligible to apply for.
3. DEVELOPING SKILLS- Community service projects and chapters are typically extremely welcoming towards newcomers to their line of work, and will allow hands on experience and a chance to develop different skill sets depending on the line of work. This is a fantastic opportunity to take advantage of, since it's basically an apprenticeship. Take Habitat For Humanity as an example, they allow their volunteers to develop construction working skills, and they don't even have to go through a rigorous job interview or sign a working contract to be able to get that hands on experience, and volunteers can be as young as 16 years old and only have to work for one day if they wanted to.
4. NETWORKING- The people in charge of community service programs are a great source for networking, since they are more likely to open up and talk about opportunities they have been hearing about and can provide letters of recommendation! These people are typically really enthusiastic about helping their volunteers, mainly because they start off with a high opinion of those who are willing to do free labor for the benefit of the community, in most cases at least. Keeping that in mind, don't wreck that image they made about you. Remember to keep to their time frames and arrive early to projects, maintain a professional and caring attitude, and overall, respect.
5. RESUME- Doing a variety of community service projects is basically creating a bank of experiences that can be picked and chosen from to beef up your resume based on the job you're applying for.
6. PERSPECTIVE- Giving back to the community is just something everyone should do at least every once in a while, since it does open your perspective of the hard work others are willing to go through for the greater good of the community. It’s basically a ‘faith in humanity’ restorer. Plus, many volunteer projects are a great way to lift your spirits if you had been having a hard time, since many do give a real sense of accomplishment that you helped to improved someone else’s day or life. Plus, some people could really just use a bit of assistance to help stabilize their life, mostly through securing some of the most basics of necessities such as shelter, food, community, and health support.
Here are links to more spread out community service groups:
Habitat For Humanity
Feeding America
Ronald McDonald House Charities RMHC (helps families stay close to their children while they’re receiving care at a hospital)
United Nations International Children’s Emergency Funds UNICEF (one of their current goals is to help prevent childhood deaths through making immunizations more accessible)
