When a young special needs boy hugged Junior Cassidy Roleck after a therapeutic riding session, she knew these moments of tendrness were worth all the hours of community service.
“I like volunteering and helping people,” said Cassidy.
Although some members of Community Service Club and National Honor Society (NHS) do these charitable acts for the benefit of a more impressive college application, there are many others that genuinely believe in what they are doing and want to make the community a better place. The people who choose to do community service because they want to make the community a better place do community service for the right reason.
The reason community service is called community service is because people voluntarliy do a generous service in order to benefit the community. If you are thinking about your college application while you are willingly picking up garbage in a local park, then you are being self-centered and doing community service for the wrong reason.
Cassidy and her younger sister, Freshman Caleigh Roleck, volunteer at Braveheart Therapeutic Riding Center in Pawnee, Ill., where they help people with disabilities through therapeutic horseback riding sessions. Caleigh started regularly volunteering in eighth grade and Cassidy started regularly volunteering in seventh grade.
Though both girls get service hours towards their Silver Cord Award, they enjoy meeting new people and contributing to the community.
Another instance of great compassion towards the community is shown by Sophomore Brittany Mathis.
Surrounded in the smell of bleach, Mathis had been scraping graffiti off of a brick wall with a wire brush for a week. This is not the most pleasant thing she could be doing over summer break, but she chose to go on a mission trip with her church to Detroit.
“It’s fun, I make new friends, and I get to help people,” said Mathis, “I can’t make big changes, but little by little I can change things.”
These three girls are the perfect examples of why people should do community service. Community service should be done for the community, not for college. Mathis does not even record her hours because she does community service for the community.
Community service should be performed for the community because you should genuinely care about the people around you. Community Service Club was put into place not to get students into college, but to make a difference in the community. Contributing to the community means that you should be donating time to other people, not being egocentric.
When Cassidy Roleck received a hug from a young special needs boy that she had just helped, she was not thinking about how this would be getting her into college. She was thinking about the difference that she made in this boy’s life.