Generation Philanthropy: Three Ways Today's Teens Learn Life Skills Through Volunteering
School’s out for summer, but most teens aren’t just sitting around playing video games or bumming around the pool. Case in point: In the aftermath of the April tornado that swept through central Arkansas, many youth and teens were among the volunteers that rushed to the aid of Mayflower, Vilonia, Center Hill and other affected towns. Children organized garage sales and fundraisers, and donated food and other goods. The Mayflower and Vilonia varsity baseball teams even took to the baseball diamond at Dickey-Stephens Park to raise donations for rebuilding their towns.
According to the Heart of Arkansas United Way (HeartARUW.org), volunteering can help young people explore interests, learn about careers, meet interesting people, and add value to college applications and resumes. Here are three ways that teens in central Arkansas are making a difference and learning life skills along the way.
Homes for Haiti
Joy Schultz, upper school art teacher at Episcopal Collegiate School, is passionate about service learning, which she says is distinct from community service because of the power it gives young people. “Service Learning has the students critically analyze things they care about and learn how to bring awareness to the cause,” she says. “The students don’t know how to connect their passions and their ability to make a difference. But once you put them on track, they are amazing.”
Through service learning, Schultz’s students have raised almost $60,000 since 2010 to benefit the Clinton Foundation in Haiti. The destruction and loss from that year’s massive earthquake was devastating, but Schultz also had a personal connection to the catastrophic event—one of her alumni students was visiting Haiti when the earthquake hit. She was found alive, but with significant injuries. Others in her group did not survive.
Spurred by the event, Schultz began making art pins and magnets in the shape of houses and called the project Homes for Haiti. The clay homes are made using scraps and materials that would otherwise go in the trash, which means the charitable project is also a form of recycling. Schultz’s students took notice and wanted to help. Event when the school year ended, they continued crafting in the Clinton Presidential Center’s basement studio.
The homes are now sold year-round at the Clinton Museum Store. Students also set up booths and sell the pins at festivals around town, where they see first-hand how their efforts in the art studio translate to raising funds and making an impact in the outside world. Riley Blair, the current student leader of the program, is responsible for finding local events like the Cornbread Festival, and coordinating vendor booths. “Through this, I’ve gotten a lot of leadership opportunities,” Blair says. “I’ve changed what I think I want to do when I get older. I think I want to go into nonprofit and do whatever I can to help those people who I didn’t know were in such a bad situation. Even locally, there are so many people who need help and so many ways that people can help them.”
Blair has taken Schultz’s ultimate lesson to heart: “Our goal is to educate and empower kids to believe that even though they are young, if they see a significant problem, there are ways that they can raise awareness or make an impact,” Schultz says. “Take some control of the world. Just because you’re young, it doesn’t mean that you can’t.”
Ozark Mission Project
From the very beginning in 1986, the Ozark Mission Project was not your average summer camp. Based in community service, the camp now hosts about 700 campers in grades 6 and above from Arkansas youth groups (all denominations welcome). OMP partners with local agencies in communities around the state to find residents who are in need of assistance. During the day, campers repair decks and screened-in porches, build wheelchair champs, paint houses, clean gutters, plant flowers and more—all at no charge. Bailey Faulkner, executive director, says the service projects are diverse and depend on the needs of the people in the communities: “We partnered with Our House last year, and helped a single mom of four put together a baby bed and a playhouse in the backyard. Or, we helped a woman whose husband was sick with cancer repaint their house,” she says.
The campers work hard…and in the heat of the Arkansas summer. While the teens will probably learn new deck-building skills or minor construction tricks, Faulkner says even those who aren’t handy with hammer and nails are vital. “It’s just as important to talk to the neighbor. Some people are just lonely, and it’s not about the gutters. Their neighbors don’t stop and check on them and that’s what we’re there for—to love them,” she says.
Building strong future communities is the goal, Faulkner says. “We aren’t just doing work for people who need it. We are building lifelong community leaders. I hope that the campers will end up being our future board members for nonprofits in our state, political leaders and community volunteers. I hope they carry the lessons that they learn at OMP for a lifetime.”
The Interact Club
You’ve probably seen members of The Interact Club, a teen subset of the Little Rock Rotary Club, around town. The Interact Club at Catholic High School for Boys, called R.E.A.C.H. (Reaching Everyone at Catholic High), is made up of about 60-80 students, who accomplished approximately 1,800-2,000 hours of service last year. The teens dedicate their time to multiple projects every year, volunteering at community events like the Greek Food Festival, or with organizations such as CARTI or Centers for Youth and Families and much more. They even host an annual basketball tournament, and this year raised money to support Heifer’s Seeds of Change initiative.
An annual favorite for the students is volunteering as buddies for the Miracle League, a baseball league for children with special needs. As buddies, the teens help athletes hold a bat or run the bases. Jordan Beard, who acted as Chair of the Interact Committee for approximately three years, says the volunteers learned about compassion and inclusion. Beard says they stressed to the teens that “kids who have physical and mental challenges often have trouble getting involved in a sport, and this may be the only way they can interact in a sport. It kind of hit home for the guys,” Beard says. “They’re all involved in sports, and a lot of them are interested in baseball, so it made an impact on them.”
Beard says the other benefits include learning leadership skills and how to engage in a professional setting. “They have their own officers. They run all the meetings, and form subcommittees,” he says. “That gives them some real world experience to see how things work to move into the next phase of their lives and their careers.”