How Does Volunteering Benefit High School Students?

Many high school students can benefit from volunteering in their communities. Being able to help others or improve their community is a valuable skill to learn one that they will take with them as they become responsible young adults. Here’s how volunteering benefits high school students:

Volunteering teaches important life skills.
If you want to give your high school student a head start in the world, having them take on volunteer work is one of the best ways to do this. Not only does it teach important skills like the value of hard work and appreciating what their parents and school have done for them, it helps teens to learn responsibility. Being able to channel their often misguided energy and ideas into something worthwhile can be a very empowering skill for high school students to learn about the world and their place in it.

Being a volunteer is great preparation for a future career (and looks good on a resume).
One of the very best ways for any young person to start gathering ideas about what they want to do after graduation is by volunteering. They get to learn about the world of work, build great work-related values and mature socially through volunteering. Many teens end up going into careers that are needed by our society, such as working for non-profits, or getting involved in medical, legal or social work as a result of their experience with volunteering. Being a volunteer allows them to learn important skills they can use in their future careers, like time management and people skills. They can also list their volunteer work on their resume when they are ready to begin working a paid job in the future.

Volunteering allows high school students to give back to society.
If you want your high school student to learn the value of having compassion for others, or how they can be a productive member of their community, then volunteer work is the perfect solution. High schoolers can work to improve the lives of others at soup kitchens, shelters, food pantries or health clinics to get a sense of how well they have it as compared to others in their community. They can learn what it means to care for others and provide a service for someone who is needy, so they can give back to the community and put aside their own needs.

High School students take with them important values as they emerge as adults.
This world can only be a better place if more high school students experience the joy of performing volunteer work. Being able to take care of other people less fortunate, serving to meet the needs of others and sacrificing their own time goes a lot further than one would think. As adults they will have developed the skills to become more mature and responsible then their peers, as a result they will become more successful adults.

Overall, volunteering as high school students can be a rewarding and positive experience. This is one great experience that will last a lifetime for the youngest generation.