The Impact of Community Service
Community service has always given me a sense of accomplishment, a feeling that I have done something good for the world. Being able to see that I have positively affected others through my volunteer work makes me feel as if my service is truly important. It has helped to make me a happier person, develop friendships that are sure to last for a long time, and also assisted in making me a more well-rounded individual.
I have always enjoyed helping others, but I did not really begin to volunteer much until my freshman year, when I joined the Teen Action Group (or TAG, for short) at my local library. I spent much of that summer assisting in setting up, working, and taking down various children’s activities that the library hosted, ranging from guest speakers on science to days where we simply set up board games and video games for the kids to play. It was an enjoyable opportunity, and was a segway into which I found numerous other volunteering opportunities. Because of my positive experiences, I came to realize the true importance of community service and how it can affect so many other individuals, in addition to giving one a sense of accomplishment. After becoming a part of TAG, I was able to join numerous other volunteer groups, perhaps the most significant being VIP (the Volunteers In Plano). Through VIP I have been able to work in various events that I might never have even known about before, ranging as far as ushering a musical performance by the local symphony orchestra to standing at a booth at a city-wide environmental exposition. As the amount of time I have dedicated towards volunteering has increased, my overall happiness has come to increase as well. I have found that I enjoy volunteering and working within my community a great deal, in part because of the sense of accomplishment I gain after completing every opportunity. My enjoyment in volunteering has assisted in making me a generally happier person towards everything, and has become a very critical part of my normal life.
Through volunteering, I have come to meet many people from many different backgrounds, all of whom have proven extremely important to me, whether it be in teaching me something new or simply being a friend to me. Some have been fellow students, ones who I probably would not have known if it were not for my community service, while others are adults who have taught me much. From volunteering at the local balloon festival, I have met many different balloonists, some from completely different parts of the country, in addition to people in my town who simply enjoy volunteering as I do. I have met various police officers and police volunteers by volunteering with my father through his volunteer organization, CAPP (Citizens Assisting Plano Police), and learned much about what being a police officer truly entails besides what is shown on television. From TAG I came to meet several friends from various schools, some my age, some a few years younger and older than I, and have become better friends with those who I knew before I began volunteering. I have also made excellent connections with the librarians, who are always so friendly to those of us who have helped them with the events and children throughout the summer programs. Everyone I have met has been so memorable and offered so much to my life that I would never have had did I not choose to volunteer.
Each one of my experiences has helped to teach me something that I may not have known how to do before, and even help me a great deal with bettering my school work. I am currently the president of the environmental club at my school, and am now working on getting the entire school to recycle and be more environmentally-conscious. I have joined various other organizations within my school, as well, and have taken on numerous officer positions in several of them; I am the stage crew manager of my orchestra group, and was the creative director of the poetry club formed last year. I have worked hard with all of the various organizations I am now a part of, in part from learning of the challenges and fun times I have had while working in community service. I work extremely well with group projects, and always manage to complete whatever work that needs to be done on time and at a good quality. In addition to my school work and newfound knowledge, my volunteer experiences have also helped me develop skills I may not have been as good at before. For example, when I volunteered for the balloon festival, I gained experience in doing difficult tasks quickly – helping to set up the hot air balloon and take it down later – in addition to simply gaining knowledge on a subject I had never thought I would have the opportunity learn about. Working for the environmental exposition helped to fuel my passion towards the “green movement”, and learn about what going green really means. Through my general work at the library through TAG, I have learned how to be better organized, how to work better with a group of peers, and have gained a great deal of patience in dealing with seemingly out-of-control situations (for having over one hundred small children waiting to go see a guest speaker with multiple wild animals is certainly a cause of great confusion and chaos). I have come to enjoy the challenges of life, and throw myself head-first into situations I may have hidden away from before.
My volunteer experiences with the library have also helped me in discovering a passion I might never have realized before: teaching. I know that I will be happy in a teaching profession because I enjoy assisting others and working with children, and what better way is there to helping others than to teach future generations? My willingness to help others is a great asset to my being a teacher, and all the experiences I have had through service to my community can help me be the best teacher I possibly can, whether it be in organizing the day’s activities to simply working with the students. I am confident that teaching is the perfect profession for me, and – combined with my love of the English language and passion for the power of the written word – I know I will be successful and happy in my future profession.
Community service has always been a critical part of my life, and within the past four years the passion I have had for helping others has only grown as I have volunteered more often. I have become a happier person, met interesting characters I never thought I would ever come across, and achieved a great deal more, simply because I have gained knowledge on so much through my volunteer work. Thanks to all of my positive experiences in community service, I have come to find my future career, too, one that I know will make me happy, and help make others happy as well in years to come.
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