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Benefits of Volunteer Service

BENEFITS OF VOLUNTEER SERVICE

There is nothing like the feeling you get from helping others, but college students will find there are many other benefits associated with volunteer service. Volunteering can help students:

• Meet new people
• Learn about the local community
• Explore possible careers
• Network with potential employers
• Learn creative responses to real-world problems
• Enhance their resume
• Build self-esteem and self-confidence
• Make a difference in someone’s life

These are just a few of the benefits that volunteering has to offer. Service-learning provides an even deeper level of community service.

SERVICE-LEARNING

What is service-learning?
Service-learning is a combination of meaningful community service with instruction and self-reflection, all designed to enrich the experience of both the volunteer and the recipient. Service-learning is often associated with classroom or course material that is used to address a specific community need or problem. It allows students to both use and enhance their academic, problem-solving, and critical thinking skills, while performing a service in the community.

The National Service-Learning Clearinghouse offers the following as an example of a service-learning project:

If students collect trash out of an urban streambed, they are providing a service to the community as volunteers; a service that is highly valued and important. When school students collect trash from an urban streambed, then analyze what they found and possible sources so they can share the results with residents of the neighborhood along with suggestions for reducing pollution, they are engaging in service-learning. In the service-learning example, the students are providing an important service to the community AND, at the same time, learning about water quality and laboratory analysis, developing an understanding of pollution issues, learning to interpret science issues to the public, and practicing communications skills by speaking to residents. They may also reflect on their personal and career interests in science, the environment, public policy or other related areas. Thus, we see that service-learning combines SERVICE with LEARNING in intentional ways.

Clearly the service-learning experience is a reciprocal one, the purpose of which is to strengthen a community and its members.