In the Seven Hills School, community service is important not only to fulfill graduation requirements, but to promote personal growth in students. Karen Glum, the Director of Experiential Learning, along with various high schoolers at Seven Hills, explained how community service allows students to better understand their connection to community and promotes a wider perspective on the world around them.

Community service helps students gain a deeper understanding of both how they are connected to their communities and the ways this connection contributes to their lives. Communities range from close friend groups to countries, and each one contributes different things that help shape the lives of those who are part of them. The community of Seven Hills, for example, provides students with an education that gives students an excellent basis for aspects of adult life. After school, students will decide whether to go to college, take a gap year, go into a trade, etc. At this point, communities including family and friends step in and contribute greatly to the decision. These communities are obvious to the majority of people, yet it is more difficult to see how we are connected to communities of towns, cities, and governments. This is where community service comes in. “Community service is about helping all of us to see how we’re connected to our community,” Glum said.

Through serving, volunteers can gain insight into how their own communities contribute to their well-being. Those volunteering see how a lack of resources in larger communities contributes negatively to the lives of underprivileged people. By seeing this, people serving can begin to see how their own communities contribute to privilege (or lack of) present in their lives. “The way we live is a reflection of the resources our communities have, the choices our communities make,” Glum said. “To me, it’s just important that we see that what we have doesn’t always come from our actions but comes from the communities that we’re part of.” It can be easy to correlate a lack of privilege with a lack of hard work, but often the two are disproportionate to each other. “I have, through my own experiences, encountered people working extremely hard and barely making ends meet, and I have encountered people with the perspective that if you are unable to make ends meet, it is because you don’t work hard enough,” Glum said. Community service can help people understand how the resources a community has play a large role in people’s ability to find economic success through hard work.

Community service acts as a means of fairly distributing community resources that are often unfairly distributed. “The choices that our communities that we’re part of have made sometimes benefit some people more than other people,” Glum said. Because of this imbalance, it is important that people keep focus on leveling out the amount of resources different communities possess. “It’s important to me that we distribute (what we have) as much as possible,” Glum said. Community service allows people to give away some of the resources they have been blessed with to help level the starting foundation of communities with different levels of privilege. However, volunteers don’t have to physically give away these resources in the form of money, food, etc. Instead, people are able to give back time to their community, something that has an equally significant impact. Furthermore, although donating money significantly helps to support communities, it does almost nothing for personal development. Community service is important for not just giving back, but also for finding oneself and one’s place in the world.

Community service is also incredibly important in expanding one’s perspective of the world. “(Community service) definitely helps you see other points of view,” freshman JJ Beaty said. By immersing oneself in a community of people with different perspectives and opinions from oneself, a person can start to see different sides to issues and expand their view of the world. “I can forget that my experience of the world is not everybody’s experience of the world,” Glum said. “I’m just saying that there are different experiences, and in order for me to be making decisions as a voter, as a consumer, as a community member, I should have a sense of who else is in this community, where their needs are, and how people’s perspectives are different from mine.” Senior Erin Piernani also believes community service is crucial to expanding one’s perspective. “I think it’s important that we do community service so we can see the other side of the world,” Pierani said. An expanded perspective of the world and students’ place in it is an important role community service serves.

Students at Seven Hills generally view community service as being beneficial. Out of those polled, 89.8% said they would still serve if the school did not require it, and 41% of these people said they would serve the same amount as they do in an environment where service is required. 79.5% of those polled believe the school requires a good amount of service hours, and 89.7% of students say they will continue to serve outside of high school. 97.4% of students believe service is at least slightly important for personal development, and the same amount of students believe service is important for impacting and improving the world. Although some have a negative outlook on community service, most seem to believe in its positive impacts.

Karen Glum has some recommendations for those who are just beginning to serve. “What you should be trying to do as a student is figure out who you are, but also build a compelling story about yourself,” Glum said. “So who do you want to be on the other side of your service experience? If you don’t know, then I would say try out different things.” By trying out different forms of service, students are able to discover which type aligns with both who they are and who they want to become at the end of their service. Glum also said, “Start early.” For those beginning community service, starting early is crucial for ensuring stress-free junior and senior years.

Glum also recommended strategies for those behind on their service hours. “First, look at your calendar, and be realistic,” Glum said. “Where do you have pockets of time open, and how does that fit in with a mosaic of offerings for service?” Time management is crucial, especially during junior and senior years, and this management applies to community service as well. Further, those serving are encouraged to ask questions about the places they are serving. “I would love for every student to go into their service with the most questioning mind,” Glum said. Asking questions is an important step in understanding one’s connection to their community, along with gaining new perspectives on world issues.