Community service is always described as a morally ‘good’ activity that connects you to your fellow man, but many times we ask the question: Why does it matter? My primary job as coordinator for Columbia KIDS, a club under the Community Impact umbrella, is planning mentoring sessions and educational trips for local kids. My secondary job is to explain why volunteering with Columbia KIDS is worth it.
Every volunteer has struggled with answering this question, tip-toeing around the subtleties of describing what they do in a fair light, while attempting to express why they care and why you should too. This piece is my answer, a stab at communicating the reason for my fire and passion for community outreach.
My first experience as a club coordinator and face of the organization was at the Columbia club fair. It was like attending a cattle call. I felt like a fraud as the day wore on, under more and more pressured to change my description of CU KIDS to compete with other groups.
I left out any details that I thought could turn potential volunteers away. I simplified our group into one that took kids on fun-filled field trips around the city every Saturday. Anyone would be attracted by the promise of a good time and free touristy trips around New York City. What I neglected to tell people about were the difficulties that came with joining CU KIDS and the real reasons I got up early every Saturday.
While CU KIDS has its fair share of fun—ice-skating, the circus, museums, and more—we are primarily a mentoring group. We work with kids from the area who have not had the opportunity to fully experience their city and with some who have been labeled troublesome or delinquent. For many years, things worked. As time went on, however, we began to see a change in the temperaments of the kids in our group. The new kids that began attending our trips had increasingly serious behavioral problems. We had more and more fights and altercations, culminating in physical violence and theft at the end of last year.
Seeing that things were spiraling out of control, we took swift action, implementing an entirely new structure for our group. We realized the need to focus more on improving the behavior of the kids. We now split into smaller groups and do quiet activities that help the volunteers learn more about the kids and help the kids learn more about the volunteers’ lives on campus. The goal is to make the volunteers more accessible and easier to trust. Ideally, after the kids have shown improvement in their behavior, we will be able to take them on trips again.
Some potential volunteers may see these difficulties as obstacles impossible to surpass. After all, one day of volunteering does not end with vast improvement. The kids who attend our Saturday trips do, however, have the potential to become well-behaved and successful teens and adults. Yes, the road to achieving that potential can be long and arduous. The amount of energy and emotion one can put into one day with these kids is astonishing. For people who like quick and positive results, it may not feel worth it to put in that effort.
It takes time. Time to see the change in a child’s self-confidence and communication skills. Time to see a kid voluntarily run up to give you a hug—the greatest thanks one can receive.
College students try to fit ‘extracurriculars’ into the spare time slots on their calendars. But the truth is that community service is not something to be left for spare time or after fulfillment of personal goals. The pain, vulnerability, and frustration that come with volunteering with these kids is only worth it because of the fact that the longer you volunteer, the more you see real change. You allow yourself time to witness the breathtaking effect you have on kids’ present and future happiness.
With that said, volunteering is a personal decision based on one’s individual nature. My involvement and investment in Columbia KIDS does not mean other groups should be less respected. Find some group that allows you to connect with others on a personal level as well. See the beautiful stages on the long path to perfection.
The time to act is always present. One cannot afford to tell oneself, “I’ll do it later, when the time is right.” That time is now, when you’re at your greatest capability to help others and when you can live a happy life and not find yourself regretting lost time.
The author is a Columbia College sophomore. She is the coordinator of Columbia KIDS.