Luck High School
Luck, Wisconsin
Teacher Barbara Petersen

Roles In Community Service
By Stephanie Castellano
12th grade

 National Youth Service Day is the largest service event in the world. Their goals are to recognize the ways that youth improve their community through service year round.  They try to recruit the next generation of volunteers and promote the benefits of youth service to the American public. Every year, Youth Service America launches a nationwide media campaign to highlight the service projects.  This campaign reaches an audience of 200 million Americans.

 

WICS was founded in 1964 by a coalition of five women's groups: National Council of Catholic Women; National Council of Negro Women; National Council of Jewish Women; Church Women United; and American G.I. Forum Women.

 

In 1997 WICS began its partnership with Unity for the Homeless in New Orleans, Louisiana, to provide lifeskills for Homeless Women.  All the participants in the two ten week cycle held in 1997 graduated from the program, found employment, and have moved out of shelters into transitional housing. Places where community service is greatly appreciated include: schools, hospitals, churches, libraries, foodshelves, newsletter assembly, Red Cross, and youth groups.

 

Millions of students volunteer everyday improving communities and making America stronger.  President's Student Service Challenge is an opportunity for schools, colleges, and community organizations to recognize these young people for their outstanding community service and to encourage more young people to serve.

 

President Bill Clinton says that, Service to the community is one of our deepest national traditions, and people of all ages can make a difference by serving others.

 

My contributions have included: teacher aiding for four years which have included many activities in helping the teachers prepare their curriculum.  Helping with annual church dinners after school includes getting the dinner ready to serve and serving the people who attend the church meal.  Being involved in choir has some great responsibilities.  One needs to go to concerts at night and attend group solo and ensemble during the day.  I attended solo and ensemble with a trio of five other girls.  We had to take a lot of time and effort to prepare for the contest.  This included a lot of early mornings learning the music and a lot of one on one with the music teacher.  I was named Most Valuable Player my junior year in track and have competed in track for four years.  I was active in volleyball my freshman year.  My participation in National Honor Society this year and last year has helped me plan and get ready for the banquet.  This year I had to set up tables, help plan the meal, attend meetings, and help serve at the banquet.  Being active in 4-H for two years has allowed me to participate in the county fair, take new classes, and learn new ideas. 

 

Volunteering at concessions for prom helped to raise over 200 dollars and it allowed our class to have a nice meal, good decorations, and it gave the festive prom a nice look.  Concessions at track allowed the varsity track team to have a team dinner to say farewell to our track coach, who will not return to coaching next spring. 

 

Being an active member of the prom committee I had to dedicate a lot of time and energy.  The preparation consisted of looking through magazines to order supplies, calling people to make appointments, and endless hours of making the program.  The hardest part was arranging enough committee members to help make prom possible.  Arranging and working at a bake sale gave our class some extra money to work with for graduation and prom This year I took great pride in participating on the set crew for the school play.  After school I painted some parts of the sets, cut out designs, and helped get the set organized.                             

 

Cheerleading for wrestling and basketball took a lot of time and patience. It took up a lot of after school hours for practices, early mornings on weekends to go to wrestling tournaments, and late nights to cheer at basketball games.  It took a lot of hard work to learn and teach new cheerleaders the cheers.  The cheerleaders have to hang up signs and put spirit signs on the lockers of the athletes.

 

All my volunteering has paid off because it is nice to get out and do something for my community.  I believe that we need to get the word out about being a volunteer.  If we had more activities that appealed to all ages and advertised about it, it would probably make a lot of children get out and do something and volunteer.

 

Volunteering has helped me because I've learned to work well with all types of people in a lot of different areas ranging from church activities to school functions.  Remember the golden rule: "Do other men for what they do to you." A perfect saying for volunteering-it will pay off. Volunteering is a lot of work, and it takes a lot of time.  It can be a lot of fun if one makes it fun by getting one's friends involved with the community.  I've enjoyed volunteering for my community.  All the hard work will pay off someday.

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