Why Volunteer?
Why is community service important? As there are many answers to that question, the most important one is that it allows students the opportunity to become involved members of their community and positively impact the members of that community. By volunteering for different activities, students are able to acquire very important life lessons, skills, and knowledge.
Every weekday at around 11:20 am I arrive at the Mount Anthony Union Middle School to accompany Mrs. Shays and her special education class, where she helps those students in need to grow and become strong and independent students that will soon be moving onto the high school. Skyler and Ian, the students, smile with the joy of my arrival, and it is one of the greatest parts of my day. The time spent there is mainly playing games and talking to the students, all while teaching them in-depth and interesting lessons, as in teamwork, strategy, sportsmanship, and how to deal with loss. As these students have a lot to deal with, I feel as if it’s my responsibility to help maintain a healthy and exciting classroom setting to make their day as content as possible.
The ability to build a positive and enlightening stance on an individual's envisioning of their future is not an opportunity to pass up. I have an opportunity to impact these student’s lives in terms of ensuring that their learning environment is nothing but sound, and anyone should want that for not just the students, but for themselves also. There is a certain level of human compassion one must contain in order to be able to want to make sure these kids are happy and thriving in their environment. Also, the reward for all of your service is that you get to be able to walk out of that classroom knowing that you positively impacted those students, and did all that you could to make sure that they had a fantastic day. You do not need to be a saint in order to succeed in meeting the needs of others, and community service allows that chance to spread your compassion and kindness onto others, to only hope that one day, they do the same.