Starting in high school, I volunteered to get my hours for the classic service organizations like Beta Club and National Honors Society. At the time, it was an obligation for me to complete these hours. It was especially difficult as an underclassman when I could not drive and having working parents meant it was hard to catch a ride. However, as I grew older, I became more involved in various organizations throughout my community and found a love for giving back.
Just over the past few years, I have volunteered in a multitude of capacities. I have volunteered at animal shelters, hospitals, retirement centers, local events and festivals, multiple different elementary schools, and even I have volunteered by just sending letters through the mail to Military members overseas and through a program called The Letter Project. Depending on what you like to do, your skills, and your motivations, there are likely hundreds of opportunities near you to get involved.
Here are some reasons, if you remain unconvinced, why you will love volunteering if you don't already do it:
You will meet amazing people
Part of volunteering is meeting all the people who work there, or who also volunteer there. I have met such a variety of people through all of my different volunteer work. Whether it is a high school student my age, or someone much older, the ability to network and make new friends is a great benefit from volunteering that many do not think about. I have had many of my recommendations for jobs, and for when I was applying to college and scholarships, written by supervisors of times I had volunteered.
You will develop your skills
Never did I think I would be able to say I have experience with training future service dogs but look at me now! Skills that you never could have imagined possessing may become easily within your reach just because an organization needs anyone to be able to do those tasks for them. They will train you for free, and you will now have a skill you can take other places. These skills are great to put on your resumes or talk about in interviews.
You will make your resume look better
Skills you can gain are one reason that your resume will look better with volunteering, but the actual volunteer work itself looks great on a resume too. Volunteer work can show you are hard-working, compassionate, driven, and with a recommendation from your supervisor, volunteering can be the boost you need whether you're applying for college, an internship, or an actual full-time job. Employers look for well-rounded individuals now more than ever, and doing well in classes or getting your diploma does not always cut it anymore.
You will gain life-changing opportunities
You may not even know all of the opportunities out there through volunteering. As a recent high school graduate, I was able to travel for ten days through eleven different states in the United States through a program called Y-Corps, similar to AmeriCorps and PeaceCorps (both of which are really cool, check them out if you want some travel and volunteer experience!). I volunteered in most of these states and learned about the regions and cultures in the different states. We visited a Native American reservation and volunteered our time there, and this was most definitely an experience that I will likely never have again, all because of service!
You will make lifelong memories
Some of my greatest memories come from the service work I have done, especially from my travels throughout my Y-Corps program. Even in the simple, mundane-seeming volunteer work, I have gained loads of life lessons and memories that I will never forget. In the animal shelter, I volunteered at, where I mostly just cleaned up dog doo-doo, I have amazing memories of the friend I volunteered with and I loving on the cats in our free time, and taking the dogs for walks around the block.
You're doing good for the world
At the end of the day, all of these reasons are great benefits for why volunteering is great for you. However, the purpose of service work is to mainly help the community around you, to work towards solving the problems that plague the community and individuals within it, and by advocating why these problems need to be addressed. Even if you're just cleaning up dog doo-doo, you're saving the employees from having to do that dirty work, so that they can focus on getting the dog adopted, and helping a family to get some puppy love in their home. No matter how simple the task, you never know how big an effect that task may have.
