In our local school district, high school students are required to have a certain number of community service hours in order to graduate. I believe this requirement is about a decade or so old and the kids have a lot of flexibility in terms of what constitutes “community service.” It’s been interesting for me to watch what sort of volunteer projects my kids have chosen to work on and how those experiences have been incorporated into their overall development.
My eldest daughter started out volunteering at our local state university’s Natural History Museum. She had taken a class there as a middle-schooler and since she had such a passion and aptitude (and general, pleasant disposition) she found herself staffing the museum’s booth at special events and helping out with classes of younger children when she reached high school age. She also spent some time volunteering in the first-grade classroom taught by one of her friend’s parents. Now a junior, she does her volunteering by working in the school “store” during three of her lunch periods a week. She’s garnered a variety of experiences and hands-on work experience she would not have otherwise had.
Another daughter has done her community service this year cooking. For someone who has discovered an interest and passion for culinary arts and is taking an advanced culinary arts class in school, making soup at a local community garden was right up her alley. She gets to spend time on site, working with fresh vegetables in season and learning how to cook on a large, nutritious scale.
My son has just started his high school community service career and he desperately wanted to get into helping out in a classroom of young kids. Unfortunately, that opportunity filled up so he took his second choice and spent time volunteering in the same community garden where my daughter was cooking. He helped with the gardening and harvesting, working along side other community volunteers. Something he would have never done at home. So, while he didn’t get his number one choice, he did experience something different and actually enjoyed being outside working with tools and mud!
Although my kids have grown up in a culture of volunteering and volunteerism as a strong family value, they’ve definitely chosen projects and causes outside of my realm of expertise (I have tended to find myself serving on boards and committees–mostly in performing arts and youth services). With help from the educational requirements, they have taken that family value and made it their own, expanding their experiences and interaction with the world along the way.