After the town hall meetings, students are still puzzled about where to start on the bright foot toward graduation. One of their questions may be where to get 100 community service hours.
It’s actually easy to get if you think of 25 hours yearly. Yet, students find themselves struggling to find a wide variety of opportunities to volunteer. However, do not sweat! Every staff member or former student has done this before! So here are some things about community service.
Connections will be a step needed to start. They’re honestly helpful, you can ask your relatives, your teachers, your counselors, and other staff members for any information about future or current volunteering programs. It’s okay to ask when you don’t know!
You may not have heard it, but there are lots of volunteering events that come into place every year at JDHS. Usually, all grades are welcome in these events and are encouraged by the staff themselves to take part in events, no matter the experience. While there are certain programs with special qualifications.
The “Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps” program is one of them, it is conducted throughout the Nation and instructed by retired Navy, Army, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard officers and enlisted personnel.
“For example, our new program JROTC is for those who are interested in learning how to be a good citizen, how to keep time management and stay physically fit,” Assistant Principal Woods explains.
If physical training is not your thing, there are also other physical activities that can be at your own pace.
The school organizes beach cleanups twice a year in Kaiser park. The “Coastal Cleanup” usually starts every September 30 while the “My Estuary Day” cleanup happens on May 14.
“Unfortunately, there is always trash to pick up on that beach,” says the Gardening Club advisor at JDHS, Mr. Moody. “Yet, it’s nice to do something good. When we’re doing that, we’re showing the city higher-ups that we care about the community,”.
Before My Estuary Day starts, a Beachgrass event happens where students remove the outer husk of the beach grass at the cafeteria.
“[The students] and I work with NYC local groups like the National Wildlife Federation, they do environmental work on the coastline [against climate change],” Mr. Moody adds. “They have students prepare beach grass… which holds up the sand together and prevents the waves from washing it away and flooding the area. This helps in protecting our community and providing habitat for wildlife.”
Besides outdoors, many things also happened inside the school.
Even certain Honor Society programs require community service hours, such as National Arts Honor Society. Therefore, art events such as galleries and fundraising are organized to give the artsy students opportunities to serve the community through their artistic skills.
Who seeks volunteers at the school? You can ask the assistant principals, like Ms. Woods in room 231 if they know some volunteering events going on soon. Ms. Vanessa also offers permission slips to volunteers in room 163. There are times you can be invited to volunteer through the future events posted in the news app “School News by Edlio“ where the school staff posts news and announcements. It also displays events with dates, school volunteer invitations, and more!
You can consider volunteering at Open Houses and Summer Bridges for the school once seeing an event posted at the news app. It’s where students help make tour guides and fun games, talk with guests about what the school offers, give out t-shirts, record guest registrations, and more. To register, you’ll have to pick up a permission slip from Ms. Vanessa. Usually, each service event lasts 2 hours or longer when organized by the school. When it’s run by an organization outside the school, it usually lasts about 3 hours.
“Community service hours are important because you’re learning different jobs! You’re learning roles and responsibilities, what is like to be an adult. It gives job preparations. Doing these, you’re exposing yourself to different people.” Ms. Woods says, “We’re learning to cooperate with and manage relationships, deadlines, and other social skills. Whether by organizing an agenda or a meeting about service learning projects with everyone.”
On the internet, you can look up for reliable sources and organizations that seek volunteers. At NYC Service, it offers you a list of community events with different dates on a calendar every month. The Service in Schools newsletter also gives opportunities for youth service in NYC delivered to your inbox each month. You can view past editions on InfoHub. Service in Schools on Twitter and Instagram keep posts on program applications and youth service resources which are welcome for both students and educators!
The school has a food-can drive during holiday seasons, along with other kinds of drives which are often found on posters around the school. DonateNYC is also a perfect program for donating items! It searches the places near you where you can donate certain kinds of necessities/items that are listed in the source. NYC Service also allows you to make donations.
Overall, have fun, stay kind, and motivate others. You get to meet up with familiar faces or other individuals from different schools to partner with in activities. In the process, you might even happen to encounter people like you yet never got the chance to bump into them before!
