Finished Hours
"I'm done all my hours" "I'm already at 40-hours"
These are fairly common responses among youth when trying to recruit them to our program. Many students are content to stop volunteering time once their 40-hour requirement has been met and this poses a problem both in the short and long-term for organizations that depend on volunteers.
There can be several reasons for youth to stop at 40-hours. Extra curricular activities can be time consuming. Lots of youth are active in sports and between games and practices, time can be short each week when stacked on top of homework. Students in grade 9 and 10 can struggle with transportation to their volunteer opportunities (especially in rural areas). For many older students, part-time jobs are a large focus and can take up a significant chunk of time each week.
In my experience trying to recruit youth (and as someone in their mid-20's that remembers being a high school student), there seem to be three main types of students when it comes to community involvement:
- Type 1: The top 1% of students. These youth do not need any coaxing when it comes to their community work. They seek out opportunities and create initiatives when they see service gaps in the community. They go far and above the 40-hour requirement, often tallying hundreds, even thousands, of hours. These are the students you read about in the news as future community leaders.
- Type 2: The average student. They complete their 40-hours early on in high school, usually because of the encouragement of parents. The 40-hours requirement seems to be something to get out of the way early so that they have more time for extra curricular activities, part-time jobs, etc. in the latter half of high school.
- Type 3: Last minute hours-seekers. They have put off doing any/most of their hours until their final year/semester of high school.
Ultimately, Type 1 students are most likely to continue community involvement work into adulthood. They have seen firsthand the kind of impact they can have. However, the rest of the student population likely won't get involved, or will do so irregularly.
Personally, I found myself in a kind of grey area between the Type 1 and Type 2 students. I got most of my community service hours by organizing and running concerts at my local community centre with a friend. If I had counted all of the hours from all of the concerts (approximately 10-15 shows over two years) I would have tallied upwards of 150 hours. Instead, I settled for around 60 and paused my community involvement until after graduation.
SO. Here's my question to the web-iverse: how do we move Type 2 & 3 students along the axis towards Type 1?
Do we educate students about available scholarships and bursaries earlier than grade 11 and 12?
Are you/do you know someone that completed lots of community service hours? What motivated you to do so? Let us know in the comments and be sure to share!
Get Involved!
-J
