100 Hours or 100 Lives | Nitya Mani

To many people, community service means 30 or 100 hours or a bullet point on their college application. So many people only do community service for the rewards they reap from helping out their community. And while it’s perfectly alright to benefit from helping others out, there is a notable distinction between incidentally gaining from truly trying to help those in need, and stopping all aid once you hit the 10 hour mark or attain a certain status in an organization. Imagine what a different place our world would be if people stopped counting hours and only sought to reach their goals to help out as many people as they could. I think that our mercenary attitude towards community service has made some of us detached from the people we are helping out, and we often fail to realize that what we see as a checkbox are often human lives.

That’s not to say requiring community service is necessarily a bad thing. By mandating students help out in the community, you provide everyone with exposure to the world around them, and many times, people will connect and realize the truth behind community service. So many charitable endeavors have proceeded over time as people’s motives for doing service have changed over time, and yet, there are still so many people who stop once they have met the minimum requirement. I wish people could take a closer glimpse at what exactly community service is, giving back to the people around you in an effort to help those in need and save human lives, because just that knowledge itself can make a world of difference.