College students have a number of ways to spend their time during breaks, be it an island vacation or work at a local business. While these options have their advantages, students should think about spending time doing service work with peers.
Service Opportunities Help Communities and Individuals
College gives students the opportunity to have successful careers and financial stability. Many people in their local communities (or further away), however, are struggling each day with financial problems. Service trips allow students to use their skills and knowledge for the good of those around them, and to show strangers that they are cared for and thought of.
Students who spend most of their time on campus, where food often comes for granted, security is often assured and little physical suffering occurs, may begin to take their situations for granted. Going on a trip to impoverished and undereducated areas can help remind them of how fortunate they are to be in college and in the process of securing a degree.
Serving Communities Builds Relationships Between Students
Whether students travel to work areas as a single college or with other schools, they will have many opportunities to learn about and share things with their work peers.
As students strive to support the community in which they work, they will have a chance to share their college experiences and talk about their futures. Even less socially inclined students will find that a week of community service can bring them closer to other students.
Students on trips will also have a chance to learn about the cultures of fellow students, and of the communities in which they will be serving. College is seen as a time of new experiences and of exploration, and service trips certainly allow for that.
Service Opportunities Develop Students’ Personal Skills
Students who spend time participating in community service are able to develop their own skills for the benefit of others. Students can get lots of physical exercise working on construction sites or cleaning up the environment; or, they might choose to work with students at an inner-city school and thus improve their teaching skills. Students may find that service work in a field of interest is especially fulfilling.
There are Plenty of Reasons to Serve Other People
Given the many benefits to going on a service trip, students should consider joining an upcoming one or organizing one themselves. Campus community service organizations may be able to set them up with an event, or, they could locate an excursion on the internet.
Kenneth Burchfiel - I sometimes feel "like a lonely bird on a housetop" (can you guess what Psalm that's from?), but that's probably because I stay up at the ...
