One of our requirements for the program is for students to complete two hours of community service. Whenever I meet with middle school students I ask them what they think about when I say community service. Most students talk about picking up trash on the side of the road. While that isn’t wrong, I’d like for us to change the narrative on what students think about community service. I try to make sure they understand what it is, why it is important, and the different ways they can do community service.
Community service brings awareness to help needed from people around us. We hope to inspire our students to pursue their goals and dreams while also being individuals that can help better the community. Community service not only helps people in that moment but it creates opportunities for creative minds to make changes for the future. Community service can inspire a future engineer’s invention or a future legislator’s law.
We understand that Covid-19 has put a damper on what we may traditionally think about for community service but there are several ways we can still help our communities safely. You can organize a clean up of an area and ask your friends and family to help out. There are many people that have volunteered to clean parks and communities to keep individuals safe.
There is a program that collects manufacturer’s coupons and sends them to our troops overseas. We called Coups for Troops and we had hundreds of coupons donated from our students in the past couple years. You can also do that on your own! Here’s a link to more information.
Another way to help is to write letters to the residents in nursing homes. I’ve seen posts on social media asking for letters for their residents. How awesome would it be to have a pen pal? Many of them have the same interests as you; like sports, gardening, pets, singing, dancing, etc. I actually plan to do this myself. Think of the smile you’d put on someone’s face by showing you care!
There are plenty of websites that can give you ideas and will guide you on the different forms of community service you can do. No matter what you choose to do, remember that you are making a difference.