Student volunteers find service fulfilling, rewarding

Charleston, Illinois, Times-Courier
http://www.jg-tc.com/articles/2008/09/07/news/doc48c4826f5ba25462878586.txt

A Charleston High School teacher and a Mattoon High School teacher who are helping students catch the volunteer spirit say volunteering not only helps others, it helps the volunteers as well.

Kelly Rice, sponsor of the Service Learning group at CHS, works with a core group of about 40 student volunteers and sometimes 50 to 100 special project volunteers. Rice teaches senior and freshman English.

Students find their own ways to volunteer, but Service Learning helps make sure students also have some organization behind them.

“When I hear about volunteer opportunities, I can get in touch with the students and let them know what’s out there,” Rice said. “And I can put notations on their transcripts that they earned service hours.

“When they are telling college admissions offices that they’ve done it, they have proof.”

But having verification of their efforts isn’t the only reason young people are becoming more interested in volunteering.

“I do think a lot of them know it will look good on their college applications or their resumes,” she said. “There are so many students who maybe aren’t involved in extracurricular activities — sports and clubs — but they feel very comfortable volunteering and helping. They know that it’s something that will kind of balance out.

“But, they also do it because their friends are and they realize they like it. They feel good about it, and they’re having fun.”

Vince Walk, an economics and sociology teacher at MHS, said historically the school has about 30 members in its Key Club, a Kiwanis-sponsored group that places an emphasis on volunteerism.

“When I was a senior at Mattoon High School in 1995, we had more than 100 members in Key Club. Hopefully, we’ll see our numbers increase again.

“We piggyback on some of the Kiwanis activities,” Walk said, “but we also go out and find activities on our own.

“Basically, we help out at some of the athletic events, and some of our members help at Special Olympics Family Festival sponsored by Illinois Consolidated, which is coming up Sept. 20.

“Also that day, Kiwanis will have Peanut Day, and we’ll probably have several volunteers help out with the cancer walk at Peterson Park later that night.”

By volunteering, they learn leadership skills and gain community contacts and a work ethic,” he said.

“College admission people and businessmen see that they are willing to work hard. If they’re willing to volunteer, they’re probably going to be good students or good workers.”

Brenda Major, director of admissions at Eastern Illinois University, said volunteer efforts on student applications are noticed.

“We take a holistic review of their applications,” she said. “We ask them to indicate volunteer service in addition to any club or organization.

“It gives us a better understanding of who they are. We’re trying to see if they will be good fit here.

“We do look at their volunteering along with all the other things. It can count 10 to 15 percent.”

Major said other things that count include belonging to Girl Scouts or Boy Scouts.

“Say a student is an Eagle Scout—that says a lot about his character. It says that student has staying power.

“We’re looking for something that shows they have really gone the extra mile in showing motivation,” she said.

Service Learning at CHS is not a class,” Rice said, but a group of student volunteers.

“Traditionally, it’s supposed to be learning, not just volunteering. One day we’d like to incorporate an actual course where they are doing volunteer projects, but make it part of a curriculum.

“But, right now, it’s just their own voluntary thing. I have about 40 students who check in with me, and I check their log sheets every month.”

In the past, the Service Learning group has organized computer classes for senior citizens and organized a food drive around Thanksgiving where each grade brought something different so they created almost a whole meal, Rice said.

“They gave it all to the Food Pantry and the pantry gave it out to families who needed it. That project involved almost the whole school district.”

Rice said students also have volunteered with Special Olympics, at the hospital, and with the EIU Chapter of Habitat for Humanity’s Shanty Town.

“That project was an exciting one for them,” she said. “There were 100 students and a couple of teachers who raised more than $6,000 with Shanty Town on the high school lawn. They really got into it.”

Rice said as a college senior she went on an alternative spring break with several friends, staying for a week in the basement of the soup kitchen where they worked.

They spent their break preparing and serving meals and talking to the people who took their meals there.

One of the reasons they chose an alternative break was the lack of money.

“There was no way I could have done a real spring break,” she said. “It was going to be in March and everyone was talking about going somewhere.

“My friends and I decided it would be a cool way to get out of town, an affordable way, and we wouldn’t have to entertain ourselves because we’d be working, and we weren’t afraid of work.

“It wasn’t that we initially thought where’s some place we can go to help? I’d like to say that was the case, but that’s not what we were thinking at first. But, it turned out we really enjoyed what we were doing, and I learned a lot.

“Before we went, I didn’t know people who were struggling and who didn’t have homes and who didn’t have money to buy a meal. It was eye opening. I’m glad I went.

“Maybe if I had experienced that before, maybe I would have thought, OK, I do want to go. But, young people don’t always see the bad things going on around them.

“That’s why I want my classes to know the opportunities they have to make a difference right here.”