Youth Opinion : ‘Requiring Volunteer Work Defeats the Purpose’
There is a movement at some Southern California high schools to require at least a few hours of community volunteer work as a requirement for graduation. DANICA KIRKA talked to students about whether community service should be mandatory.
ELAINE LOKSHIN
17, junior, Claremont High School,
Claremont
I strongly believe that anyone who does (community service) should do it because they want to help. A lot of students need to be able to help themselves before they help others. Not all are ready. And the people you are doing (community service) for are much (more) appreciative if they know you are doing something that you are not being forced to do.
And also it just brings up so many other issues, like who is going to decide what community service will qualify? If I help my grandmother, is that community service (or not), but if I help someone else’s grandmother, that’s OK?
Not as many grants and donations will be given by businesses. If people think someone else is going to take care of things, then they think, “It’s no longer on my shoulders. There’s plenty of help out there.”
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GLORIA GARCIA
17, senior, Lincoln High School,
Los Angeles
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I think it should be mandatory because it brings higher self-esteem, especially for people who tag. They’ll think, “I won’t tag this because I’ll have to clean it up.”
We’ve been trying to help our school. We pick up cans. We try to do it around the community, at the junior high school.
A community gives us a lot. We should give something back. It’s like a two-way street.
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WESLEY MARQUAND
16, sophomore, Hamilton Music Academy, Los Angeles
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I do not think community service should be mandated. We should have a choice as to how we help out our communities. It doesn’t really further our education.
I think it would provide more work for the school administration and they don’t need the extra work. (Teachers) take out their frustrations on the students because they can’t take it out on the administration.
I’m a Boy Scout. I had a choice. I’ve helped clear trails in different national parks, collected food for the homeless. The key was that we had the choice to work, instead of being told we have to do this.
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ELAINE GARCIA
17, senior, Lincoln High School,
Los Angeles
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It would be good if it were mandatory because a lot of students don’t know how to get involved. Sometimes, you have to talk to the right people.
Take students in leadership. They all hang around in one group. If you don’t know these people, it’s hard to get involved. Most people would rather hang with their own crowd.
Some students are, plain and simple, lazy. When you say community service, most students think just cleaning up the streets. (We need to) help them understand more what they are doing is a responsibility of getting older and getting into the world. The more we do now, the more we can look forward to.
It’s not slavery. Making it mandatory shouldn’t sound like that. I think that it will take time to adjust to it. But once you make it mandatory, it will mean you just graduate on stage or you don’t.
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DENISE PONG
17, senior, El Toro High School,
Lake Forest
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I don’t really like the idea of mandatory hours. Community service should be from somebody’s heart. But on the other side, it’s a good way to get some students more community-oriented.
It’s a graduation requirement here in the Saddleback Valley Unified School District. We have to have eight hours. There’s a lot of kids from parochial schools where they have 80 hours mandatory. And when you have that many, they are just looking for projects. They don’t see it the same way. It defeats the purpose.
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MARISSA HERRERA
17, senior, Gladstone High School,
Azusa
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We have so many complaints about society and yet when someone says, “Hey, let’s clean up the city,” they really don’t want to. By exposing students to (mandatory community service), they’ll have an opportunity to follow up. Then they’ll have a choice.
I started volunteering when I was 13 years old (for Azusa Parks and Recreation). I’ve helped write a community service learning grant. We’re sending people out in the community to work with mentors. We want to change the image of our city. If we can expose our students, they can have a guide to what they need to do.
I was a dance instructor, and worked on Junior Olympic track meets. I got to give back some of the things that molded me. I have also worked with AIDS project Los Angeles. I’ve done that for six years now.
With the community service I’ve been exposed to, I’ve been able to be pointed in the right direction--where I want to go in life.
