Lots of organizations coordinate youth community service work. And you would be hard-pressed to find anyone who would oppose the idea of kids pitching in and helping make the community a better place for everybody to live. It suits the community because we are using the youth's boundless energy and physical stamina for a good cause. It is ideal for the causes that have been helped because the work has no end. It is perfect for kids because it allows them to think about other people, gives them a strong sense of self-esteem, helps them learn new skills, and will enable them to meet others in the community they might never meet otherwise.
But when those in leadership at the local, state, or national level propose some form of uniform mandatory community service for youth, it seems to change the nature of the program so dramatically that the discussion turns sour pretty fast.
It might be that the term ìmandatory community service has a negative connotation because, so often, that is part of the sentencing of someone who has run afoul of the law and is given so many hundred hours of community service to pay back their debt to society. So, suppose we will implement any form of mandatory community service for teenagers or kids in our society. In that case, we need to think it through and take advantage of programs that have successfully mandated community service for kids and have had success.
There are ample examples of youth organizations that have worked community service into their programs so successfully that the youth enthusiastically perform the service and have a lot of fun with it. And that is the spirit you want everyone to have on a community service project, adult and youth alike. Often, voluntary school programs such as band, academic clubs, and other competitive societies such as chess or debate clubs will include a form of community service as part of the requirements for membership. The service can be integrated with the activity, such as having the chess club members spend a day a month at the shelter teaching chess to homeless kids. The youth associate their ambitions to become great at the skill they seek by sharing it with others.
Churches and youth organizations not affiliated with schools have also wildly succeeded with community service. When you see a youth group outside the church walls, you can bet they are probably busy painting someone's porch, feeding the less fortunate, or doing something of value for the community. The church can put a positive slant on it that fits with the organization's mission by calling it a ìmission to our townî, but the outcome is the same.
One of the most outstanding examples of an organization that turns community service into a value eagerly sought by its youth is the Boy Scouts of America. In Boy Scouts, young men must complete several organized service hours to make the next rank in scouting. The program places a high value on advancing in rank, which is rewarded with pomp and circumstance during the advancement ceremony and badges for their uniforms, which young men pursue with zeal.
The key is to tie the community service to something the youth want to do. If mandatory community service is integrated with advancement, achievement, and rewards, the short-term off is all a kid needs to roll up their sleeves and get in there and work. And if they have fun side by side with adults they admire, you have a formula for a program of mandatory community service for youth that is sure to be a success.
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