People volunteer their time to others out of the goodness of their hearts. They do it to help other people, and to help the community. Any way you look at it, volunteering is something that is done as a personal choice of bettering oneself and the ones around us. It’s not forced, so people who do it are truly giving up their time for the right reasons. If requirements were placed upon students in regard to volunteer hours, the whole point of volunteering would be lost.

I can say from personal experience that forcing kids to volunteer just does not work. As a member of National Honor Society, a program that requires 15 hours of community service each marking period, I know for a fact that many students lie about their service hours. I can’t say I blame them; there is really no way to tell if a student volunteered or not, so why would they waste 15 hours of their life for nothing? This idea takes away from the whole concept of giving your time to others. If kids are just going to lie about what they did, then why should it even be required? It seems useless because some kids refuse to see the goodness in volunteering and corrupt it with their lies.

Also, I feel as though the kids who were going to volunteer in the first place would do it regardless of a graduation requirement. People who give up their time selflessly have been doing it for years, they could be part of a club or may have been doing it with their families for as long as they can remember. On the other hand, a student who hasn’t spent any time helping others will probably not be too enthusiastic about doing it or want to start now. My point is, people don’t like to change. They do what they want and, unfortunately,  there’s not much a person can do to change that.

Don’t get me wrong –I think volunteering is a great way to better yourself while at the same time bettering others. I’m not disputing that fact or saying that student shouldn’t do it. All I’m saying is that kids really just do what they want to do, when they want to do it. Trying to force someone to be a good person is a losing battle. People are good because of what’s on the inside, so placing requirements on students won’t make them better people.