In my experience, many high schoolers volunteer because they either are required to by their high school or they feel it is “good for their college application.” While both facts might be true, they should not be your primary motivation for volunteering.
The best volunteering experiences are those that relate to something you are passionate about, whether that be working with senior citizens, going to the local nursery and planting trees, or assisting at a local animal shelter. Whatever your interests may be, pursue volunteering there. And, if no opportunities exist, create them!
Having a strong passion for the cause you are volunteering for is extremely important. Otherwise, you will find yourself simply going through the motions and counting down the minutes till your volunteering shift is over, without actually taking a minute to enjoy the little things.
For example, if you enjoy meeting new people and forming connections with others, but instead decided to volunteer at a plant nursery, you will likely find yourself bored and unenthusiastic to create a meaningful volunteer experience.
When volunteering, remember that volunteering is only impactful if you care about who/what you are helping. Only when you find a cause you are passionate about will you be able to create meaningful experiences through volunteering. You don’t have to volunteer for some revolutionary, ground-breaking organization to create meaningful volunteer experiences; in fact, sometimes the simplest things can lead to the best moments in volunteering. The key is to find an opportunity you are passionate about and give it your all. Just like that, the meaningful experiences will start to occur and those are what you have to grab.
Now that you know how you should create meaningful experiences through volunteering, you must be wondering why volunteering meaningfully is important. First of all, there is no point in giving back to your community through volunteering if you do not put in your full effort. But, second of all, volunteering is a crucial part of your college application. Most colleges like to see the impact you have had on your community throughout your high school journey as they want to know what you will contribute to their college community. Thus, writing about volunteering experiences in your college applications, particularly the essays, is highly recommended. However, anyone can write a generic volunteering experience essay. The best essays, though, are those written by directly pulling from your meaningful volunteer experiences that show the layers to you as a person.
So, in conclusion, here are my steps to finding meaningful experiences through your volunteering:
- Identify a cause that you are passionate about. If you aren’t passionate about your volunteering, you will never care deeply enough to create those meaningful experiences.
- Find a volunteering opportunity that aligns with your passion. Do only what makes you happy. Love animals? Volunteer at an animal shelter. Passionate about the environment? Volunteer at a plant nursery. But, above all, remember that if you cannot find a volunteer opportunity, create one! When you are passionate about something, you must do everything possible to pursue that passion.
- Put in 100% effort during volunteering. Don’t go through the motions. If you do, then you will never truly experience the meaningful and impactful volunteer moments that you are searching for. So, give volunteering your full effort.
- Wait and watch for meaningful volunteer opportunities. Obviously, don’t expect a miracle to happen, but keep your eyes peeled for the little things that help someone/something and those are the meaningful volunteer experiences you are looking for.
Above all, remember that these steps are just a guideline; eventually, you are going to have to adapt these steps to find an algorithm that works best for YOU.
If you are like most teenagers these days and didn’t read the entire article, here is a TL;DR for you:
