Making a Difference in My Community by Austin

Making a Difference in My Community by Austin - January 2017 Scholarship Essay

There are many extracurricular activities that one can participate in to help their community. The most important to me is the National Honor Society program that my school offers. We help the community in multiple ways including food drives, book donations, and holiday season support for local families.

When I first started high school I was not too enthused about joining a lot of clubs. However, with the right grades and a little convincing from my school advisors, I soon joined NHS. This was one of my best decisions. My first task was to set up the can food drive, and I was surprised to see how many cans were brought in by the students and their parents. I never knew how many people were in need, and how many people took the time and effort to help these people. That's when the bug hit me.

Once that was done, I felt as if I needed to do more. I asked my teacher what I could do next, and she told me about the book donation that was about to take place. We made fliers and put them up all around the school. Any books were acceptable and the more we had, the better off we were. This time, not to my surprise, we ended up with five tables full of books that had been donated. We had families come from all around the community to pick up novels that were theirs to keep. Seeing the excitement on some of their faces made the hours of work seem like minutes. It is a humbling experience to give to those less fortunate.

Perhaps the most meaningful of all the volunteer activities is that of helping receive and wrap gifts for the holidays. Our community donates so many presents and food for Christmas and I got to be a part of this amazing blessing. This is the time of the year when donations are most appreciated and therefore gives you the greatest sense of accomplishment.

All of these activities that I have participated in are possible because of my commitment to NHS. It is a society that drives for giving back to our community. This inspires me to be a better person and to help do more activities. You can never go wrong when helping somebody.