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Give back to the community by volunteering

By: Ashleigh Pyle
Staff Writer

It's 6 a.m. and the dreaded alarm clock begins to ring. The daily ritual begins of getting ready for school and facing the daily classes. Then, finally, the school day is over and it's time to go home. Some people will now go to work, some have practices or games for extracurricular activities, and others will go home and day after day have nothing to do.

So, we ask ourselves, "Why don't these kids, that have free time, use that time to do something to help out the area in which we live?"

Community service is a great task that keeps many from getting themselves into trouble. Some kids believe it's not "cool" to volunteer and to willingly help out other people.

There are few young adults these days that have something that requires their attention all of the time. Those that hold down either full time jobs and still have to keep up with their curriculum. Also, those who have children who require special attention, are understandable to why they would be unable to participate in helping out the community.

Most don't realize that just taking a half hour out of television time could make a world of a difference to an elderly person who is in need of assistance.

When many teens hear the words volunteering or community service they think of picking up trash along side of a road, or spending endless hours in heat to clean up some incapable person's yard, but there are many more options than that.

You can spend your time doing things that interest you. There are programs that many people do not realize that are designed to give teen the opportunity to explore careers that and be able to actually experience them. They help teens to decide if that is what they would want to do with the rest of their life. These hours of "exploring are also considered community service hours.

The Boy Scouts of America has come up with a program called "Explorers" that gives the opportunity to check out careers in emergency medicine, law enforcement, ad many other fields of work.

People who enjoy spending time with kids could go to a hospital and volunteer to read books to them. These children who are and have been in hospitals become excited when they have visitors, and they love to sit and listen to stories.

You could visit a nursing home once a month and bring smiles to the faces of terminally ill patients who just like to see the shining young faces of teens. Many teens who were asked about doing community service have done it for their church, but still, many kept using the excuse of not having enough time.

If you enjoy doing yard work, you could still do the stereotypical labor of helping out a neighbor by pulling weeds or mowing the lawn or helping to move objects.

Once you complete any type of volunteer work, you have a sense that you have done something worthwhile to help someone else out, and that can be a wonderful feeling.

These days, our society has caused teens to only worry about what they will get out of it. Being a privilege or money, that is most teen's main concern.

I believe that this should not be an issue. Teens should feel as though it is a privilege to help someone else out and to make somebody happy, but unfortunately most don't feel the same. Maybe if teens had more encouragement to help out by their peers or figures who they respect, they would be more willing to participate.