Community Service: A reward in itself
Civil rights activist Dorothy Height once said, “Without community service, we would not have a strong quality of life. It is important to the person who serves as well as the recipient. It is the way in which we ourselves grow and develop.” By definition, community service is the voluntary service or work intended to help others in need.
In today’s age, many questions stand when it comes to the topic of community service. Such as, should extra credit/rewards be offered in return for acts of community service? Furthermore, do such rewards take away from the overall purpose of community service?
It is time a resolution is found for these questions. In all honesty, community service is done out of the goodness of one’s heart, through the desire to help others. In my opinion, extra credit should not be rewarded to those who perform community service. Such tangible rewards take away from the primary motivation to serve, which should be to help others.
First things first, community service is work that is strictly voluntary. It is any individuals choice to provide services to help others. For instance, here at Aurora High School there is a class provided to learn all about community service.
Service learning teacher Melissa Foster explains, “ASL class is now a pass/fail class. We require students to engage in certain activities and log a certain amount of hours; however, we felt there was no way to differentiate a students volunteer work with a grade. Keeping the above in mind, I do not think volunteer work should be awarded extra credit. It should be an intrinsic value that one learns to do and enjoy.”
Aurora’s own Service Learning class does not offer a reward for such acts of kindness. The rewards the students get are purely within themselves. Students that take the class enroll purely because they want to help others, not to gain accolades.
Junior Service Learning student Ally Devins states, “I volunteer primarily because it makes me feel like a good person. It allows me to give back to my community which feels amazing. Although I am not entirely opposed to extra credit, I strongly feel it would make you perform acts of service for the wrong reason. I also believe it would take away from the overall reward of community service”.
Performing acts of community service allows students to gain many different rewards in itself. Students that perform acts of kindness are more likely to feel increased feelings of happiness and satisfaction, decreased feelings of stress and depression, improved self-esteem and self-worth, and a greater sense of gratitude.
Senior Nicole Doemling stresses, “I perform acts of kindness purely to see the immense happiness it brings to the recipient. The feeling I get after helping someone in need is a feeling that could never be met by tangible rewards.”
Ultimately, community service is an individual's own choice. Thousands of individuals perform acts of kindness every single day, not for extra credit but for the happiness it brings to all involved. For that reason exactly, I believe extra credit should not be a reward for acts of community service.
