Essay About Volunteering
Volunteering is a priceless activity as people offer their work just to help the public or the community without expecting payment in return. Community service is based on the acts performed by a volunteer with the purpose of helping or bringing benefits to his or her community. In the past people used to compare community service to a punishment, because it was usually performed by offenders as a way to aliviate their fines or jail time. In fact, many high schools in the United States require their students to help out the community as volunteers in order to graduate. There are several advantages and disadvantages associated to what community service would provide to high school students.
Community service can have a lot of positive effects on students, such as helping them to improve their health, making contacts by networking, and doing interesting jobs. For example if some students choose certain activities, such as working to clean up a park or a beach, then these services represent a good exercise for them, which help them be physically healthier. Moreover, when volunteering students have the chance to try interesting activities to develop as a career in a future, such as working in social media, organizing events, or working in a specific type of institution such as a hospital. Besides, by participating in a community service a high school student are exposed to many types of work and environments at such a young age, which will be helpful on their professional resume. Networking is another major benefit of volunteering, as students meet individuals who can be important contacts for future recommendations and references. Furthermore, a study by United Health Group says that 76% of student participants who have volunteered in the past twelve months felt more interest to work, 94% of students reported that it improves their health, and 78% of volunteer students say that it has increased their professional network.
However, there are some disadvantages to community service that must be considered before students commit their time and effort to an organization. First of all, not every student can afford the time to volunteerism since it is an unpaid work. Besides, even if participants have the time, perhaps the organization of their choice may not have volunteer opportunities at that time or place. Second, many volunteer positions require significant physical demands of their volunteers and have injury risks even for fit people. For instance: positions in building and demolishing structures could be challenging and risky. In third place, many organizations need to incur in a cost to train volunteers and provide supervision until the volunteers can confidently and reliably fulfill their roles.
Volunteering helps solve many dilemmas in the community, thus, it is very important to discuss about volunteering with teenagers, since they are the future generation. There are many advantages and disadvantages related to the effects that community service would cause in high schoolers. Even though, they as young generations should understand that communities are not perfect and the government sometimes is taking care of other things that require more attention. Therefore, by volunteering students are not only helping others, they are also helping themselves.