Junior Nihar Agrawal smiles at the 7-year-old boy taping furry pom-poms together to make a caterpillar at Lowell Elementary School while participating in the volunteering program Sunday Friends. The boy giggles as one of the pom-poms falls off, and Agrawal picks it up.

“Try some more glue,” he says, laughing.

It is Agrawal’s third hour that day at Sunday Friends, a volunteer organization that helps children from low-income families learn skills such as cooking and crafts.

“I think [volunteering] is one of the most meaningful things I can do with my free time,” he said. “[And] I love seeing the people I work with and learning about them.”

Although hundreds of students perform community service each year, Agrawal has established a reputation for his earnest and consistent attempts to help others.

A regular volunteer for multiple organizations as well as the co-founder of the club Committed to Community, Agrawal has learned “how meaningful and impactful service can be” when he began volunteering at the Saratoga Retirement Community during the summer before sixth grade.

“[It] was really nice to see that the senior citizens enjoyed our music so much considering that we were just pulling out tunes from our beginning band book,” he said. “We were playing songs like ‘Mary had a Little Lamb’ and ‘Jingle Bells,’ missing quite a few notes.”

According to Agrawal, a community hours requirement (beyond the six hours required for health/driver’s ed) would incentivize students to volunteer.

“I think the lack of a requirement definitely decreases the amount of participation that would have been had if Saratoga did have a service requirement, because people are always motivated by what they have to do,” Agrawal said. “Despite this, I think a lot of people still get out and serve the community.”

Sophomore Rachel Won also thinks it’s a good idea the school has no community service requirement.

“People would see [a large hour requirement] more as another chore to accomplish, which contradicts the point of volunteering,” Won said.

Won added that through the school’s current system, only students who volunteer on their own are rewarded.

Still, other students are motivated by potential recognition at

Senior Awards Night: Students who complete at least 100 hours during their high school career have this contribution to the community acknowledged with a red cord on their graduation cap and a certificate at Awards Night. Eighteen percent of the class of 2014 received this recognition.

Other schools require students to meet a certain number of hours.

For instance, Saint Francis High School students must complete 15 hours each in their freshman and junior years, and 10 hours in their sophomore and senior years. Each year, students must gear their volunteering toward a different cause.

“The requirement helps me put aside time for [volunteering], and all the places I’ve volunteered at have been wonderful experiences,” said Saint Francis junior Vrinda Vasavada. “People who initially don’t want to do service because they think it’s boring or time consuming [usually] end up feeling really good about the aid [they’re giving] and actually enjoy it.”

Though it might boost student participation, the service requirement is not required at Saratoga High for a deliberate reason, according to College and Career Center (CCC) coordinator Bonnie Sheikh. The school wants only those genuinely interested in volunteering to do so.

“We really feel strongly that [volunteering] should come from pure motivation and a desire to help others, not because it [benefits] you,” Sheikh said.

Even so, the school does believe that volunteering is an important aspect of high school, one that students definitely should participate in.

“Even for adults, sometimes a great way to find a job is through volunteering because you make connections; you build skills, you show commitment to something,” Sheikh said. “Having that can help you as you move on to a job or [help you] to gain skills that are definitely transferable.”

As part of the school’s goal to encourage community service,Sheikh tracks volunteering opportunities and publicizes them on the school website and the morning announcements. She also compiles a binder in the office for students to find volunteering opportunities that are categorized by different interests. This information can also be found in the CCC.
Sheikh said that student volunteers often say they “got so much more back than they gave.”

Agrawal agrees, saying each student has the ability to help solve issues in society.

“It’s easy to think, in the grand scheme of things, that poverty and hunger aren’t things I can really help out with, but everyone has the power to do something,” Agrawal said. “Even on a small scale, you’re still impacting a lot of people.”