Having community service experience can help you get admitted to many colleges. It’s because colleges want leaders and not just students. If you don’t have community service experience yet, it’s not too late. Starting a community service project is easier than you think.
Below are 14 community service ideas for college-bound teens:
Neighborhood Cleaning
Pollution spreads diseases, destroys animal habitats and creates unnatural hazards for children. Cleaning the neighborhood can reduce pollution by a great deal. Sweeping the streets, removing plastic and segregating trash can help the environment.
Book Drives
Illiteracy is one of the biggest issues plaguing the world today. Few children have the luxury to go to school. Even fewer learn how to read and write. Books are some of the most effective tools to remedy this problem. Both literature and textbooks can help. This is also a very easy community service project to conduct. Many people have books that they need to get rid of.
Volunteer for Soup Kitchen Crew
Community service is often linked with volunteering at a soup kitchen. It doesn’t mean you’re only going to help serve food to those who enter the cafeteria. You could be volunteering to go to the suburbs and give food to street children. You might have to travel a bit and serve food for people who suffered from a hurricane attack or a flood.
Gift Donation Drive
This type of community service project is more popular around the holidays. Despite this, you should consider launching it for all throughout the year. Through this project, students will collect varying donations. These could be toys, clothes, food and more. There is the saying that nothing is better than the gift of giving. This service project embodies that ideal.
Yuda Bands Fund-Raising Project
Here’s a free yet effective project for students to do. Yuda Bands involves selling bracelets to fund education. The recipients are children from Guatemala and Zimbabwe. Selling these bracelets also provides work for the ones making them. It’s like hitting two birds with one stone. It’s also free – the foundation behind it provides all the bracelets and marketing materials for free.
Tabletop Gaming for the Youth
Tabletop games, such as Dungeons and Dragons, are becoming more popular than ever. These are games that focus on impromptu storytelling and problem-solving. They can help improve everyday skills such as arithmetic, reading, and writing. Tabletop games have helped others deal with social anxiety, depression, and loneliness. Many famous celebrities like author George R.R. Martin and actor Vin Diesel play as well.
Volunteering for Relief Missions
There are natural and man-made calamities happening around the world all the time. There are many victims and refugees of war, hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, and fires. Students can help provide packages of food, medicine, and clothes to these victims. This will give the doctors and other professionals more free time to attend those who need them.
The Extra Life Charity Event
This project runs every November of the year. It involves people getting together to play video games and tabletop games. The games are then streamed live on platforms like Twitch or YouTube. The goal of Extra Life is to earn donations from the fans and viewers. The money goes to children’s hospitals. In 2016, the project earned $9,600,000. $50,000 of that came from gamers. This makes it one of the most successful crowd-sourcing community services.
Activities for the Elderly
Students may not be able to provide much for the elderly but they can organize activities. Retirement homes appreciate games like Bingo. These activities can keep the elderly happy despite them being away from their families.
Livestrong Project
Although this community service project gears more towards working-class adults it is applicable for students entering college. It also involves selling bracelets which in this case are gel-silicone wristbands. Instead of financing education for the youth, it focuses on funding the fight against cancer. The money can go to cancer patients or fund cancer research.
Habitat for Humanity
College-bound students need to get involved more with the world around them. Habitat for Humanity is a service project that achieves this goal. It involves getting the students together to help build houses for the homeless. These could be people living in the streets due to extreme poverty or people who lost their homes to calamities like a storm or fire.
Providing Free Rabies Vaccination for Pets
PETA and other animal care organizations often provide free rabies vaccinations for pet owners. Students can take part of these activities and go door-to-door to provide the vaccinations. You’ll still need to have a veterinarian join the students. The youth can still handle all the paperwork and assist the veterinarian with minor tasks.
Orphanage Aid
Some clubs, like Key Club, often visit orphanages to help in whatever means possible. College-bound students can do the same. Orphanages often need more than the usual donations of food, clothing, and medicine. They also need toys, bed sheets, and books. The young children also need attention and human interaction so games and other activities are always welcome too.
Fund-Raising Events or Concerts
Schools are often populated with very talented students. One of the best community service projects they can do is to launch an event to raise funds. Events like a stage play, talent show or musical concert are often quite successful. The money then goes to different charity organizations. Most organizations prefer cash over canned goods and others, making this a very lucrative idea.
