Scholarships, resumes, hours, hours, hours. Community service provides a multitude of benefits to students. However, it also gives things that are much more important. It helps everyone around you, and gives a sense of satisfaction.

“Community service allows people to see that you care about not only the local community, but essentially the global community,” said Key Club president senior Kristy Lam, “While some only do the service for college recognition, others do it out of the kindness of their hearts.”

Student’s worry more about how doing the service will look for college, than how much it really means to those they are helping. One student that has experienced how much impact her help really made is junior Jessica Potucek. While helping out at an event called Gift of Giving during the holidays, Potucek realized how important it was to the children. “Seeing the children being able to open their presents and smile made me happy to know I was in Key Club,” Potucek said.

However, Key Club is not the only opportunity to aid in the community. Other school organizations, like National Honor Society, provide similar aid, whereas Mu Alpha Theta allows students to help their peers. Each of these provides similar opportunities for students. “Joining national or international organizations give students the opportunity to serve with friends, learn how to be leaders, and to have connections many other organizations would not have,” Lam said.

Sometimes however, people just simply cannot be a part of an organization, but this isn’t an excuse to avoid community service. Regardless of the reasons, individuals can do community service on their own time, ranging from helping at local hospitals to libraries.

Community service not only helps now, but helps future generations as well. “Without community service, our future generations would have a less beautiful world to live in. There would be no kindness. There would be no clean streets. There would be no green grass, or maybe even trees. We clean up the world little by little through our food drives to keep people fed, park clean-ups to keep pollution low, and fund-raising to fight against diseases,” Lam said.

The most important thing about community service is about yourself. Despite how good it would look, or how nice it will make others feel, it’s important that it gives personal gratification. Like many things in life, if you hate doing it, it will become a necessity, and not a desire. If someone feels unmotivated to help in community service, they probably aren’t helping themselves, or anyone else. But that shouldn’t be where they give up.

“One tall, lanky, awkward, and quiet person can walk into Key Club his freshman year and walk out his senior year being confident, outgoing, and outspoken,” said Lam. Being around friends, having fun at service events, and just broadening comfort zone can result from joining these service organizations. Try different types of services, different organizations, or just something on the individual level.

Community service is truly filled with important, satisfying, and in some cases, life changing experiences. For more information on how to get involved, contact the Activities office in Room 908 or any club adviser.