Community service was always instilled in my head as something important that you had to do in order to become a full-fledged member of society. My parents always reminded me that the true measure of a human being was the amount of service they did to help others. From a young age, I grew up watching my parents assist at my local church and go out of their way for anyone in need, no matter how big or how small.
Here is my journey on how I learned to love community service.
- Middle School
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Thanks to my parents, my community service journey started right at the end of middle school, when I started volunteering at a retirement community in my town. As an angsty thirteen-year-old with absolutely no cares in the world except for binge-watching TV shows, I was pretty much forcing myself to go. It was a battle to force myself out the door every single Thursday when I knew I could be spending time with friends. As months passed though, I started to dread Thursdays less. I started to get excited about going and visiting the residents. I played piano for them, read them jokes, played trivia games with them, and learned about their lives in general. One of my favorite residents at the facility used to come out of her room when I came just to talk to me about her secret ingredients for pies and her days of winning blue ribbon after blue ribbon at county fair baking contests!
- High School
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My community service journey really kicked into gear in high school. Getting into organizations like National Honor Society, Spanish Honor Society, Key Club, and the Thomas Jefferson Forum allowed me to take service to whole new levels. I was able to expand from just the retirement facility to various other venues, like women’s shelters, set-up and clean-up events for other clubs at my school, the local library, churches, city park events, and much more. I honed in on talents that I wanted to improve on, such as my piano skills, and ended up finding a weekly volunteer position as a pianist at another nearby retirement facility. It was—and still is—one of my favorite volunteer events I’ve ever done. The smiles on the residents’ faces and the stories that we got to share with each other to learn about each other were absolutely priceless. Though all the service I did took up quite a bit of time out of each week, it was beyond worth it.
- College
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I am proud to say that although I am twice as busy in college as I was in middle school or high school, I fit in time weekly for community service. Joining a service-based sorority, tutoring, working with organizations like Disability Services and pre-medical clubs, and taking up positions in clubs that contribute a lot to volunteering on-campus and in the surrounding area greatly helped me expand my worldview, bolster my love of service, and also are a great way to meet new people who are interested in similar things as me!
I highly recommend getting involved in community service as much, and as soon as you can. It is highly rewarding, and there are so many opportunities that you will always find a place where you belong. Community service events that tailor to your skills, talents, and passions will be well worth your time, I guarantee it. So do some research online, join a few clubs that seem interesting, add yourself to a few mailing lists, and see where you fit in today!