Community service is an excellent way to help people and improve your community. It can also help you gain skills and experience to include on your resume and college applications.

What exactly is Community Service?

Community service is precisely what its name says; services you perform to benefit your community. Community service can be done by an individual or by several people that help others. 

Community service can improve the lives of different groups of people like troubled children, senior citizens, people with disabilities, sometimes even injured animals, and save the environment. Community service is usually organized through a local group, like a church, temple, school, or non-profit organization. However, you can also start your community service projects.  

People join community service because they enjoy helping others and improve their surroundings and community. Many students take up community service to graduate from high school or get particular honors. Sometimes adults are also ordered by a judge to complete several community service hours.

How Participating in Community Service will Help you in College Admission

Develop a Better a Perspective of the World

Volunteering is a crucial part of preparing students to take authority as open-minded, civilized citizens in a global community. While performing community service, students have the opportunity to observe in real life how much their work can have a positive impact on the world. Students volunteering locally at food shelves, retirement centers, animal shelters, and orphanages get to interact with people who have immensely different backgrounds learn patience and empathy as they develop a whole new perspective of the world.

Connect What They Learn in the Real World

Community service provides students a considerable opportunity to explore academic interests in the real world. 

Volunteering can help students learn more about how certain things function; for example, clean up drives, recycling waste, etc., can help students learn more about environmental issues firsthand.

We have found that when students connect what they are learning in school to real-life issues that matter, they throw themselves into learning. Studies show that students who give back to the community perform better in university, especially in math, reading, and history. Moreover, students who participate in community service are also more certainly to graduate from high school.

Edge in College Admission Process

As admission to elite universities is becoming more and more competitive, volunteer experience can be a massive advantage in college admission. This is the reason many students start doing community service projects. However, students who start earlier have a distinct advantage because their span of experience allows them to step up to leadership positions within organizations quickly.

The advantage in Getting Scholarship

Those extra years of volunteering give students an advantage while applying for scholarships—usually, scholarships are planned to reward community service participation. The relationships students build with other volunteers also make their advantage when it comes time for college applications, letters of recommendation, and scholarships.

Improved Resume

Volunteering looks impressive to employers and shows that the student is responsible and cares about their community. Also, volunteering can serve as an unpaid internship. Employers are often not ready to hire people without experience, and volunteering is an easy way for students to gain experience in various fields.

Create a network

Students who want to get into a particular field can use community service to network with other industry experts. As a volunteer, the students can learn about new job or internships. Students can also help some of their friends’ volunteer for references and advice on finding a career in the industry.

Overall become a better person. 

“Set your heart on doing good. Do it over and over again, and you will be filled with joy”. -Gautama Buddha

Indeed, volunteering is a peaceful experience internally. Studies show that people who help others are happier individuals. Students can become more comfortable through volunteering, and they can learn new skills that help them succeed. 

By learning communication skills and managing the books, students can pick up skills to grow. Students pay thousands of dollars every year for their schooling. Instead of spending more money on the school to learn a skill, students may pick up the same ability through volunteering. This will help students develop a great resume and network with professionals.

Improve your mental and physical health

A recent study shows that volunteers enjoy remarkable health benefits. Compared to non-volunteers, volunteers are likely to efficiently deal with stress, anxiety, and depression and have lower mortality rates. While older individuals had the most health benefits, young students also enjoy the health benefits. 

Also, people who spend over 100 hours helping in services each year shows excellent positive health outcomes. From health benefits to a better resume, students who undertake community services can gain exceptional benefits. 

Community service allows students to show leadership, creativity, compassion, understand and come to terms with the real world. Colleges do not just want students who will perform well in class – they want students who will also engage outside of the school and positively impact campus and the world.

How Should You Use This List?

We have covered more than one hundred community service examples. The list is organized by category, so let’s say if you are specifically interested in working with senior citizens, children, or animals, you can easily find community service activities related to your interests.

You can look for projects that are similar to your interests. You may also want to perform particular community service that allows you just enjoy, like baking, cleaning or acting,

Many community service work can help you gain skills. These skills include yoga, teaching, medicine, internet skills, CPR, construction, and many more. If there is a particular skill you'd like to learn for future classes, jobs, or just out of personal interest, you may want to see if there is a community service activity that helps you understand that skill.

List of Community Service Examples

We have put together a list of community service project examples to get you started.

Collecting things for your community

1. Contribute to school supplies.
2. Collect backpacks.
3. Organize and make donations at a homeless shelter.
4. Collect non-perishable food products.
5. Get extra unused makeup to donate to domestic violence shelters.
6. Collect Halloween candy to send to deployed military service members who cannot celebrate at their home.
7. Collect hygiene items.
8. Collect used jeans for homeless teenagers.
9. Collect stuffed animals for small children.
10. Collect SAT and ACT books and donate them to a library.
    

Helping School and Children

1. Teach children after the school
2. Organize fun games and activities for children in hospitals 
3. Knit blankets which can be donated to hospitals or homeless shelters
4. Organize a Special Olympics event for children and teenagers
5. Donate a used sports equipment to children and teenagers
6. Volunteer at a summer camp for teenagers who have lost a parent
7. Coach a youth sports team
8. Give free music lessons to children.
9. Organize a program to encourage kids to learn, read and work hard for a better future
10.  Help new students make friends. 
11. Become a counselor and help troubled kids
12.  Develop a new game for children
13. Sponsor education of child living in an underdeveloped foreign country
14.  Pass your good religious knowledge to troubled teenagers
15.  Babysit children
16. Volunteer local health department to set up an immunization clinic to immunize children against diseases
    

Helping Elderly

1. Read to elderly at a nursing home.
2. Deliver groceries and meals to senior citizens
3. Teach internet skills
4. Drive senior citizens to doctor appointments
5. Now their lawn
6. Host a bingo night at a nursing home
7. Host a holiday meal
8. Make birthday cards 
9. Decorate a Christmas tree at a nursing home
10. Organize a family day for residents of a retirement home and relatives to play games together
11. Deliver medicines to elderly neighborhood
12. Organize a concert, sing or play some instrument at a retirement home 
13. Help the elderly clean their homes.
14. Shovel snow, wash windows and help in gardening. 
15. Deliver cookies 
    

Taking care of Animals and Environment

1. Take care of dogs and cats at an animal shelter
2. Clean up a nearby park
3. Help raise money and get a bulletproof vest for a police dog.
4. Plant a lot of tree and plants
5. Place a bird feeder and bird fountain in open spaces.
6. Start a butterfly garden in your community.
7. Segregate plastic waste into different categories for recycling purpose
8. Cleanup drives for plastic waste removal
9. Sponsor a recycling contest
10. Create a new walking trail at a park
11. Update the essential signs along a nature trail
12. Adopt cats and dogs
13. Organize the cleanup of a local river or lake
14. Nurture animals that do not have space in shelters
15. Take care of a neighbor's pet when they are gone away for a long time.
16. Sponsor an animal at your local zoo
17. Train your pet to be a therapy animal and take them to children’s hospitals and nursing homes
18. Build a birdhouse
19. Organize drives to inform people about the harmful effects of “Air pollution, water pollution, noise pollution, and soil pollution and how to prevent them.”
20. Arrange a carpool to reduce car emissions
21. Arrange more second-hand bikes in your town
22.  Volunteer at a nature camp and inform kids about the environment
23. Test the water quality of a lake or river near you
24. Plant trees and quickly grown flowers along highways
    

Helping Homeless People

1. Build a house
2. Donate your old clothes
3. Volunteer at a kitchen
4. Donate your old eyeglasses 
5. Donate blankets
6. Organize a Thanksgiving dinner for people who are unable to arrange on their own
7. Offer to for a family in need.
8. Make “care kits” with daily necessities like toothbrushes, paste, soaps, shampoos, combs, etc., to donate to homeless shelters.
9. Distribute a home-cooked meal for the residents of a nearby homeless shelter
10. Help to fix the interior or paint a local homeless shelter.
11. Donate art supplies to kids 
12. Organize a donations drive at a homeless shelter
13. Babysit children while their parents search for jobs
14. Become a Big Brother for children at a homeless shelter
15. Take homeless children on picnics.
16. Prepare food and deliver it to a soup kitchen.
17. Build flower boxes for Humanity houses
18. Organize a drive in winter to collect coats, blankets, scarves, and gloves to be distributed
19. Distribute first aid kits for homeless shelters
    

Promoting safety and reducing crime

1. Volunteer at a police station or firehouse
2. Volunteer as a lifeguard 
3. Paint over bad graffiti in the neighborhood 
4. Train girls and children for self-defense
5. Organize a drug-free campaign
6. Sponsor or arrange a drug-free event
7. Start a neighborhood watch program.
8. Teach a home-alone safety class for children
9. Organize a drive against drug and alcohol use
10. Become CPR certified
11. Volunteer as a crossing guard for an elementary school
    

Helping overall community to grow 

1. Paint park benches
2. Donate used books to the local library
3. Become a tour guide of your local museum
4. Repaint community fences
5. Plant flowers in bare public areas
6. Start a campaign to raise money to install new playground equipment for a park.
7. Help to organize a community parade.
8. Clean up drives
9. Produce a neighborhood newspaper
10. Start a campaign for more lighting along the dark streets.
11. Petition your state authorities to build more drinking fountains and public restrooms
    

Conclusion

What you are waiting for, start volunteering! You can withdraw from small projects that you can complete on your within a short time; then, eventually, you can take up much larger projects that will take more time and people. If you find anything interesting and are willing to do it, you can start on your own.

If you want to take up a large project, you will need more resources or people, and you can check around your community and get the help or check if a similar program already exists that you can join.