x2VOL Blog: Tracking Service Hours at your School

Whether your school, district, or club has a service requirement, or encourages students to serve, the process to track, manage, report on, and engage students in service can be complicated and time consuming. 

Community service is an important element in education. Reports have shown that participating in community service during high school positively impacts a student and even increases a student's likelihood of being accepted into college. While service is great, there are complications that come along with students completing regular service. From tracking hours to approving hours and ensuring students are completing their service before graduation, it takes a lot of time and effort from the administrators and service leaders to ensure success.

One wonderful part of the holiday season is the desire to do good for others. Whether individuals are donating to organizations they are passionate about or are going out into the community to serve others, the giving heart is alive and well during this season. There are a lot of opportunities for students during this time not only to give back to others, but also make progress on their service requirement for school.

Summer is the perfect time of year for students to spend some serious time serving in their community. There are so many different places and groups of people for students to serve. Check out these summer service opportunities:

The news is riddled with stories of college applicants bucking the system and working outside of the rules to get into universities of their choice.

College acceptance nowadays takes so many things into consideration when evaluating an applicant. It's more than just about their grades. It's about their extracurricular activities, the sports teams they are on, the clubs they are in, their standardized test scores, and who they are as a person. The stakes are high and students are feeling the pressure.

Participating in community service is more than just a chore or something to check off the list. It can be an extremely transformative experience for students, opening their eyes to a whole new world outside of their day-to-day bubble. 

Spring break is the perfect time of year to spend time serving in your community. Whether it's through a week-long service project or time spent volunteering at a local nonprofit, this is a great time to volunteer. 

Are you serving in your community during high school? Or are you a school leader has students completing service hours?

Don't miss out on the chance to be recognized with The President's Volunteer Service Award! We have outlined everything you need to know about the award, what it means to receive the award, and how to go about applying. Share it with your fellow classmates or share it with your students! This is an awesome opportunity for all of the students that are active in serving their community. 

You got into your dream university, but now you have to figure out how to pay for it! Remember those community service hours you did in high school? They could be the key. There are many scholarships, awards, and grants for students to help offset and cover the cost of school. Many of these, provide awards based on your service experience. 

Are you looking for a community service opportunity that is a little bit more out of the box? Check out this list of community service ideas you can participate in to benefit others this fall and winter during the holidays.

There are so many needs in the community and so many different ways that you can benefit other people as we go into the holiday season.

When students participate in community service it expands their world-view and opens them up to ideas and opportunities they might not have experienced otherwise. They learn about the importance of helping others and have a chance to discover an area of focus for a potential future career.