As the school year progresses, college applications are on every high schooler’s mind. From freshman year to graduating seniors, the pressure to volunteer in order to impress colleges is pushed upon high school students. However, although it certainly encourages helping the community, the desire to volunteer only in order to fill a college application can cause the importance and impact of service to be lost on the students doing it.
Elizabeth Stearns, the sponsor of Cavs in Service and a librarian at LTHS, upholds the values that the program stands for. “When you are so driven to succeed and stand out for colleges, for success later, I think sometimes the ‘service’ core of Cavs in Service is lost in trying to meet a requirement,” said Stearns.
Each participant has the goal of serving at least one hundred hours throughout high school, all of which should be put towards nonprofit organizations. While completing this goal does aid college applications, Cavs in Service stands for the deeper values that volunteering is associated with: humility, service, and helping others. “We are a purely, kind of originary, ‘giving of yourself to help others’ space,” explained Stearns, on the topic of the Cavs in Service environment. All interested students are encouraged to review volunteer guidelines and values of Cavs in Service.
However, even for students that truly want to help their community, finding volunteer opportunities that align with their schedules and interests can be difficult. “We are fortunate to have a very motivated, very active, very interested student body that does a lot of things well,” said Stearns. The LTHS community is diverse, with a variety of talents and interests. Although there are plenty of nonprofit organizations in the Austin area looking for help, having so many options to choose from can make it tricky to find the ones that are the best fit.
For students who want to help the community but have limited time available to do so, there are many local religious organizations looking for once-a-week volunteers. Santiago Pombo, a junior at Lake Travis, is a regular volunteer at Lakeway Church. “I work with the children there. They’re mostly third and fourth graders, and they’re actually pretty great kids,” he explained. The positions offered by churches can range from packing hot lunches to tutoring children, making it an option for students of all interests.
Not only does Santiago enjoy the impact he makes on the church youth through his volunteer work, but he has also opened his mind to new possible career paths. “I really find it interesting, because the way I’ve been working with children has made me realize that it could be something I could do in the future.” Lakeway Church is one of many churches and other religious groups that are always looking for help.
The library is another popular volunteer choice because it gives teens the option to help on a seasonal basis, which can benefit students who are involved in sports or other activities. “My volunteer period ended on August 12th, so that ran from that last week in June to the last week before school started,” shared Veer Patil, a Lake Travis junior and a summer library volunteer. Veer is a Lake Travis athletic trainer, so having the opportunity to volunteer during the summer benefits him because he is able to help the community without overloading his schedule.
The Lake Travis community has extremely motivated students. A full academic schedule combined with extracurriculars can be difficult to manage, but each student can excel in helping others with the right volunteer position. For students of all interests, time commitments, and experience levels, finding ways to give back to the community is possible with enough information.
