“The biggest thing that I’ve learned doing community service is giving and sharing. life shouldn’t be all about you. It’s your responsibility as a person to help other people. It’s about giving and sharing with others. A selfish life isn’t a life to live at all.” -Amaya Starkey, Howard ‘18
The importance of community service carries more weight than you think. Servicing others and community outreach is always great, but it carries more weight when you’ve taken the time to open your mind and heart to those that you are servicing. The lessons you learn from those less fortunate than you are lessons that no prestigious university or professor could ever teach you. Giving back and serving our community is something that not only benefits our community, but our character and perspective on life. Whether you’re a community service pro or you choose to give back every now and again, you’re helping mold a better future for our community one act of kindness at a time.
Here’s exactly why community service is so great, not only for those in need, but for yourself as well!
1. You’re Helping Someone Else
With there being so many people in the world, so many of those people are in unfortunate situations and face complicated circumstances. To help make things a little or a lot better for people in either a big or small way is always commendable.
2. You’ll Learn New Things
Any kind of experience outside of sitting at home and being a recluse is always a great experience. The best learning environment is an active environment where you can get hands on practice. If you just sit back and observe a new setting or if you simply surround yourself with new people, you can learn life lessons just from listening to the stories others tell or you can learn how to do things such as building actual houses or planting trees. You can even learn about issues going on in your community that you weren’t aware of beforehand. Remember, knowledge is key and it can never be taken away from you no matter how you learned it or who taught you.
3. Networking
When you put yourself in a new environment with new people, you find new opportunities! It’s also when you’re in the right place at the right time that you find yourself afforded these new opportunities. You never know who may be in the room that is just as passionate as you in regards to a certain matter and may need your help or vice versa. Allow your passion for the community and hard work guide you to more people who can help you conquer the world!
4. Greek Life
Whether you’ve heard anyone say it before or not, community service plays a huge role in fraternities and sororities! It’s easy for people to believe that greek life is all about strolling and rocking cool gear, but they also strive to serve their communities and ensure that their members are compassionate and effective leaders.
5. Resume Building
Not only are sororities and fraternities checking out your servicing experience but so are your employers and anyone else who reviews your resume. When future employers review your resume it’s better for them to see what kind of experience you have in all fields, paid or not. They want to know that you, the candidate, is capable of working hard and servicing others.
6. It’s Humbling
As stated before, so many people are placed in so many unfortunate situations. Community service outreach is always helpful for not only those being serviced, but those doing the servicing as well. It’s easy to take a lot of things in life for granted, but being reminded that things could be worse and not all of our problems are the end of the world is something that we all need from time to time. Just, remember do unto others how you’d wish for them to do unto you. If you were in someone else’s shoes you’d appreciate the help too.
To avoid robbing yourself of the opportunity to learn and grow from helping others, just consider how your actions will make a better tomorrow for not only yourself but also for others and the world we live in!
“Ask not what others can do for you, but what you can do for others.”