<p>I'm in grade 11 right now and I do not really know where to start in volunteering. My school has a mandatory 20 hour service requirement for each grade, but I don't think that counts because I did them all at the school, like helping out at the library and designing the school website (if it does count, then I've got about 50 right now). I'm interested in helping outside of the school and in the community, but I do not know where to go. I checked out various websites for my city and they're more oriented for adults (like requiring morning-noon school day hours, driving capabilities, etc.). How did you guys find your volunteering opportunities?</p>
<p>What kind of things are you interested in?
I've done volunteer work at elemtary schools. They always need help, it could be working with kids in an after-school program (Possibly tutoring) or helping in the office or working on a school website. This is also something that could look good on a college application.</p>
<p>volunteermatch.org helps! Local Alzheimers association, Cancer association, hospitals, etc always welcome volunteers. Good luck!</p>
<p>Thanks for the replies, you have definitely given me some ideas. BTW, how do applications people know if you actually did your hours or not?</p>
<p>In my school, we're creating a science fair for local 5th graders. NHS and CSF (california scholarship federation) also provide for some great EC activities. volunteer at local food banks, etc., they can be quite fun. I do this "holiday project" every december, in which we donate and wrap 3000+ gifts for the needy/those in prison/those in hospitals (basically people who cant celebrate xmas easily)</p>
<p>a lot of my ECs don't really have to do with volunteering.
Yearbook - Section Editor 2 years (will be EIC next year)
Physics Teacher at San Jose Breakthrough Collaborative/Summerbridge ("internship")
Vice President/Director of Marketing of a tutoring company
chemistry/honors chemitstry tutor
Scientific research (mainly having to do with ozone depletion, UV-B, and white blood cells)</p>
<p>As you can see I'm really interested in science, so I try to center my ECs around it.</p>
<p>Well, you're supposed to document them. You can join some volunteer organizations (such as Red Cross) and they keep totals of your volunteer hours. Maybe you can join an organization...? For the Red Cross, anything that contributes to their philanthropic ideology counts as hours. You can do things for them like fundraising, founding clubs, and some other activities like teaching first aid to kids and providing first aid services to races. The training is free and it takes a couple of sessions before you get to do the first aid work I mentioned. (First aid training, CPR, bloodborne pathogens, etc...)</p>
<p><a href="Http://www.redcross.org%5B/url%5D">Http://www.redcross.org</a></p>
<p>Also, what are your ECs? Maybe you can mix in community service with the ECs you're passionate about. For example, if you're a musician, perhaps form some type of club or program at the local elementary school encouraging music or performing at a hospital in some type of 'music for healing' program.</p>
<p>Blood drives, clothing drives, toy drives, canned food drives, and things like this are always a nice thing to do at your school too. What are the service clubs doing at your school? Are you in any? If you're feeling very ambitious, perhaps you can join all of them, and try to form some type of coalition so that all of you guys can work together with various 'drives' and projects. It would be a nice thing to do.</p>
<p>The soup kitchen! That's a classic choice.</p>
<p>you can always volunteer at the library or in a mentor program. Seniors in my high school have to do 100 hours of volunteer work in the school to graduate early >.<</p>