The importance of school volunteering

When it comes to high school you are taught that you must succeed in learning well and

achieving things, so that soon, you can have many choices in where to go in life. Often those

choices are extra classes in a community college or taking as many AP courses as possible, but

there's a choice that builds character and matures oneself efficiently. This is not often pushed

onto high school students and many times overlooked and forgotten, school volunteering. This

has been an option for many years, and so few of the high school population ever choose to do

such work. Although I do understand some high schools have started encouraging kids into

doing such things or just having to be an essential requirement to graduate, often it isn't talked

about as much and explained for students to have a basic understanding of the beneficiaries to

which, students overlook such tedious work and chose to be active in other things. I being a past

member of a school volunteering community, TLC association formally known as Leo, I can say

that it helps us better ourselves for good and just allows us to experience different things and

understand to be grateful for what we have. As someone who has sisters that heavily participated

in community work, this was an option made known to me from the very beginning, and

witnessing someone go out of their way to help the community for nothing in return taught me

mentally that even with no material reward you know it is helping someone somewhere out there

and you know the positive impacts it brings to life, which that itself is rewarding enough. People

often said community service was hard and boring from a one time experience they’ve had, but

in actuality, if you are doing it with a good reason and mindset and continue positively,

everything and everyone makes it entertaining in the long run and although sometimes

depending on what you chose to do it can be called hard to do but a majority of times it brightens
up your mood to know its benefitting someone and improving yourself. So when it comes to the

importance of school volunteering, I ask what do people think of volunteering? Do they have

negative or positive experiences with this work? Should school volunteering be advocated more

to students for the benefit of their futures? I went around interviewing a couple people and

asking different personilized questions on their idea and thoughts of school volunteering, I chose

from ones being in a high position in such actvisies, ones that have never participated in

volunteering, and someone who is an adult that could possibly have a different view of what

volunteering means. As someone who has actively participated in a community service club, I

know some people who also did work like this, but unlike me they were people who chose to

take on leadership roles and faced different work from what a usual member would do.

On the first interview I asked someone who took up the roles of a club president and a

club secretary in their four years of volunteering. Her reasoning for taking up such roles was

because of experience, she knew that in volunteering you can gain many experiences and learn

skills and she wanted to take on a higher role in such a place because it would allow her to

develop her skills deeper than before and she always had a passion for engaging in new things to

continue to learn more. Her opinion on the matter of volunteering as a high school student is in

favor as she believes it is important for high school students to “gain unique experiences and

translates into the real world” as she says. I asked her how important she believes volunteering is

to high school students, since she favored the idea of high school students participating in

volunteering, in which she says that volunteering is important to high school students as it

teaches students compassion and vigilance through their work. She also adds that volunteering

helps learn real-world skills such as communitcation with others and teamwork with other peers.

As she thought very highly of what volunteering can offer to students I asked if she thought
students knew about such chances, since she described the work as more of a benefit than a

setback, to which she does think students know about the opportunities and clubs existing, but

believes that more students would join if the schools would encourage it more and adds that

schools should definitely advocate and educated community service clubs to students. Thinking

on how highly a former president of a volunteering group thought of this work, I decided to take

another direction in asking someone who is older and was an adult when we were still students

on her ideas of volunteering and what it is, which was a completely different experience as she

spoke of volunteering. She explained that her knowledge of community service was after she had

joined a photography club and they were assigned in taking pictures of such events, and in turn

made her volunteering separately through the school or off school for volunteering events. She

does not explain that she had a volunteering group, but instead was as an individual who would

go and volunteering by herself in her own time as it provided her joy of seeing children and other

people happy receviving her help, volunteering in such events soly out of her heart. She thinks

students should decide themselves if they would like to volunteer, but does encourage it as she

says it was an experience that was worth. She also does agree that schools should offer more

opportunities of community service acts as people who will be able to participate in them wont

regret the time spent. Her ideas on volunteering were completely different as she was

participating in this type of work soly because she learned what it was through a photography

group and it provided her joy, she did not have schools actively present this option to her as

much so she went to volunteer on her own time. Seeing how differently age can effect ideas on

the same topic I wanted to see if positions were important factors in forming an opinion on

volunteering so I interviewed another person that was in a service club, but not in a high role,

only a usual member. I asked her what she thinks of volunteering and explain the benefits
volunteering can offer to a student and she had the similar opinions someone in a higher position

has, as in she says community service teaches students communication, leadership, and problem

solving skills. She also believes schools should encourage students to join community service

clubs as it gives them a sense of fufilment and lets them explore professional careers and build

resumes. Her answers to my questions were similar to someone in a high position in volunteering

even with the differently built questions, but she focuses more on the skills values it offers rather

than emotional skills volunteering has. Since they all had postive views on volunteering as they

have participated in it, I wanted to ask someone who hasn’t had the chance of volunteering and

to see their says on what they think volunteering is and if they would have wanted to participate

in such work. She describes community service as a group of students helping cleaning up things

such as their schools or community and looking for opportunities altogether. She claims that she

and many others did not know the existence of community service groups and that if she knew of

such opportunities she would have done so as she believes it involves life skills and connecting

with peers. She does agree that schools should advocate service groups to students more as she

herself was not known to this information when she was in high school. Overall in her opinions

she also thought highly of community service and thought of it as just a life skill opportunity.

Knowing in the interviews with personilized questions they thought of volunteering in a positive

manner I wanted to see how people would think with a survey of just a couple questions and

three out of the four who responded had been in a service group and one had not, the people who

had experiences with volunteering described it as developing their skills and a opportunity to

connect with others, whereas the one who did not experience volunteering described their idea

on what they think it is, which is a club involving the public volunteering in many events thats
main goal was to better the community. They all think the idea of volunteering is good and that

schools should teach students more about it.

In conclusion of my interviews and the responses I had in my survey, I think most people

have a positive light about volunteering as most say it builds a lot of skills and knowledge to

gain, a well understanding of the amount of people they think know the concept and choice of

volunteering, and I believe people agree that schools should educate students more on

volunteering and what it is as many some people I asked questions to found out about

community services by themselves or missed the whole opportunity to begin with.