Whether it is spending an afternoon helping out at a local animal center or organizing a community drive, there are countless volunteer opportunities available for students, enabling them to become actively involved in the betterment of their communities.
“I’m part of Key Club International and we offer a bunch of volunteering events for students that are in the club,” Key Club president and senior Alton Lin said. “We do things like fundraisers, drives and clearing out [invasive species] from nature. Those are things that I’ve done myself and it makes me feel like a good person, since I’m able to give back to my community.”
There are a myriad of benefits associated with volunteering, including improvements to an individual’s physical and mental health, increased social interaction and providing individuals with a sense of purpose and valuable life skills, per Mayo Clinic.
“The Red Cross is a humanitarian organization, so it tries to help people from around the world get access to resources, like we’re doing a toy drive right now for veterans,” Chantilly Red Cross Society president and senior Siddhi Surawkar said. “They also try to help [people] escape any dangerous situations, like if there’s an earthquake or something like that.”
In some cases, volunteering with clubs or organizations can play a role in an individual’s future decisions, especially since doing so can give them insight into potential career paths they may want to pursue or allow them to develop new interests that could become central to their identity.
Junior Isabel Kraft is a regular volunteer at A Forever Home (AFH), a dog adoption agency that takes dogs from across the nation and transports them to Northern Virginia. After volunteering at the animal rescue service for some time, she discovered her passion for dogs and the veterinary field in general.
“After doing this for so many years, I decided that I really liked training dogs that came here,” Kraft said. “And it was really fulfilling getting a rambunctious puppy at the event, training it and then sending it to a great home.”
Additionally, there are a plethora of places where individuals can find volunteer opportunities that align with their skill sets or interests. Volunteer Fairfax, the Fairfax County website and the weekly CHS College and Career Newsletter are all resources individuals can utilize when searching for volunteer opportunities, in addition to asking around in their school or greater community area.
“Volunteering really impacted how I interact with other people,” Kraft said. “I’ve met a lot of interesting people who have different experiences and I really think that opened my mind to a wider view of experiences, along with changing the way I think about other people and learn about new things.”
