How Your Student Can Volunteer - And What That Experience Can Do for Them

7/27/22

Volunteering instills responsibility, hard work, and values in youth across the country. Volunteer programs allow young people to provide a much-needed community service. When a student volunteers, they make a positive impact on the world around them while also instilling a well-deserved sense of self-pride.

Volunteering for your K–12 student broadens their horizons and changes the way they see their local community. Students who volunteer find an opportunity to make a direct impact, one that will continue to give back for the rest of their lives. 

What do K-12 volunteer opportunities offer your child?

For a student, volunteering can take many forms. From opportunities within their school, supporting nonprofit organizations, or finding their own ways to contribute, volunteering connects your child with their community.

Volunteering teaches responsibility

Student volunteers learn to give back to the world around them, developing the life skills and core values to become upstanding members of the communities they live in. Young people learning these civic duties throughout their time in K-12 will pave the way for a conscientious, successful adulthood.

Giving back reinforces your family’s values

Volunteer opportunities are a perfect and healthy way to connect with and confront problems in the world with direct solutions. Students learn to be productive citizens that push for sensible, applicable, and tangible change where it is needed and use their drive to be the positivity they want to see in the world.

Students find personal growth

One of the largest benefits of volunteering is the positive impact on the trajectory of your child’s education and future. These service projects provide a realistic entry into the real world, inviting your child to get involved, explore, and question in ways the classroom cannot. Volunteering also adds to the diversity in extracurricular activities that will help your child exceed personally and scholastically in K-12, higher education, and beyond.

Where can your child can volunteer

There are plenty of volunteer opportunities to choose from, so it’s important to choose one in which your child can thrive. Are they interested in cooking? Soup kitchens and food banks are often looking for any volunteers willing to help. Love environmentalism? Most parks take in volunteers to help clean up litter, plant new wildlife, and more! It’s all about finding a way your child can engage with and learn from the community you live in.

Charities and nonprofits

Local chapters of charities and nonprofits like Habitat for Humanity or American Red Cross offer structured and organized options to volunteer that your child can partake in. A volunteer program or group can show students the effort and exercise of a fully functioning charity, and how they can work within one to promote positive change.

Local programs

Although larger institutions are a fantastic option, often a better way to directly connect with the community your child lives in is to get involved with a local organization that takes on volunteering opportunities. Within your area, you can find a volunteer program at your local soup kitchen, public library, and community center. Seeing that they can directly impact the lives of local people through community service improves your child’s connection to empathy and responsibility.

Help your child get started volunteering today

From therapy with tiny horses to improving the foster care system, students learn to solve problems and think about a future they want to see. Taking action today is the first step to changing the world tomorrow. It's never too early to promote personal development in young adults.