volunteering essays

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The college admissions process is, to put it mildly, stressful. Not only do we as students study tirelessly to keep an appealing GPA, trudge through hours of standardized testing, and find the time to somehow attend a hundred club meetings in a week, but now we have to devote our last few spare hours doing volunteer work? What?! Please, I don’t have time for that! At least, that’s what I used to think when I spent my summers begrudgingly volunteering at a local thrift shop. Yeah. Try spending eight hours organizing donations without air conditioning in the middle of central Florida for five days straight, and then talk to me about your enthusiasm for volunteer work. Anybody up for the challenge? Mhm. That’s what I thought. So, the question remains: why bother volunteering? When it comes to service work, it’s important to realize that, similar to an actual career, not all volunteer positions fit everyone. It’s one thing to just log hundreds of hours for the sake of mildly impressing a college admissions officer, but the actual goal should be maximizing your utility. Let’s face it: We’re high school students. We’re busy; even if we’re procrastinating, we’re busy. Volunteering isn’t exactly at the top of anyone’s priority list, so finding a non-profit organization that clicks with you is the first step to enjoying (tolerating?) volunteering. As I mentioned earlier, I spent a couple of summers hastily completing my school’s volunteer requirements at a local thrift shop. I did not care for it at all, and I only showed up so the volunteer coordinator would sign my hours sheet. It wasn’t until the summer before my junior year that I found out just how enjoyable volunteering could be when I began working for a local vet hospital. So, if you’re in the same position as I was, try out different organizations. Don’t just settle for an organization to rack up the hours. There’s a.
Volunteering has changed my life forever. I have often heard people talk about the benefits of volunteering, of it being a way to reach out and touch the lives of others in a positive way. But I didn’t fully understand the impact of that claim until I started to volunteer myself. I started volunteering in my last year of high school so that I would have something to add to my university applications. At first, I would just be a helping hand in local community events, such as bake sales and food drives. But then, I was asked to help organize an after-school program for children. This changed my life forever. Our Service Can Write a Custom Essay on Volunteering for You! Everyday after school, children from the local community would arrive at the mosque where volunteers like myself would plan activities for them until they were ready to be picked up by their parents. For the most part these children came from low-income families, whose parents could not afford expensive day care facilities. We would help the children with their homework, take them to the park, and organize various games for them. The kids responded well to the program, and slowly I started to develop a bond with them. The more I worked with them, the more I realized how much I loved them. Many of these kids did not have the luxury of taking swimming, soccer or karate lessons like other children their age; and because I knew that myself and another volunteer were fully accredited lifeguards, while two other volunteers played on their university soccer teams, I initiated a plan. I would teach the kids how to swim, while the others would help them form a mini soccer league. But little did I know that while I was teaching these kids how to swim, they would also be teaching me things. Every time a child was scared to get into the water, they taught me patience. Every time, a child got scared and held on to.