On a cold winter night on January 23, 2025, energy filled the South gym. The basketball teams were playing their hearts out on the court. The games ended in wins, and the crowd was alive with energy while the band played and the cheerleaders waved their pom poms. Inside the gym lobby, members of the Green Initiative sat at a small table by the concessions stand, informing people on how to sort their trash and asking for donations for the club. There were students further into the lobby, sorting through the game’s trash, putting the waste into their respective bins. These volunteers took time out of their evenings to be there, informing people on how to be more eco-friendly.
Students across the Bellevue community volunteer with various organizations and in many different ways. One way students volunteer at school is through Green Initiative.
“[We volunteer by] helping around during lunch, making sure people are putting the right stuff in the right bins,” junior Teagan Hadley said.
While there are many volunteering opportunities at school, especially through Green Initiative, lots of people also volunteer outside of school as well. Some examples of out-of-school volunteering can be trail cleanups, volunteering at animal shelters, or in freshman Gabrielle Bauer’s case, volunteering at church. Bauer volunteers with kids during Sunday service, and it can sometimes become a handful.
“Most of the time it’s mainly just lots and lots of crying, kids want to see their parents or want to go home, or they’re just tired,” Bauer said. “So mainly it’s just kind of keeping them active, having them play with toys, keeping them busy, and off the parents.”
Volunteering can have a great impact on communities and the volunteers themselves. According to Western Connecticut State University, some benefits of volunteering include connection to others, physical and mental health boosts, and advancing careers.
“Volunteering is important because it helps where people won’t help,” Hadley said. “Places that need improvement, and places…that people don’t know need help.”
Behind most of the volunteer work people do, there is someone behind the scenes coordinating the events and working with volunteers. They are called volunteer coordinators. Savannah Bowling is a volunteer coordinator for the Munroe Meyer Institute, which is an organization that works with kids and adults who have special needs.
“I was asked if I was interested in the position and thought it would be a great opportunity to take on more responsibility and help educate students on how to work with people with intellectual/developmental disabilities,” Bowling said.
Some typical day to day activities for Bowling are sending emails, planning for other programs, and working on future plans and projects for her department. There are some challenges, however, just as there are with many jobs.
“Sometimes it is a heavy workload during the weeks leading up to a new session, but I remember that it is benefitting our participants which makes all the work worth it,” Bowling said. “COVID was a big challenge because we work in person on a day-to-day basis, but we overcame by switching to virtual and still providing programs.”
Despite the struggles many volunteers and volunteer coordinators face, many of them still enjoy volunteering. Volunteering is important for people of all ages, in all walks of life. However, it can be especially beneficial for high schoolers.
“I think it is so important for people to volunteer because it teaches them skills they can carry over into any career,” Bowling said. “High schoolers especially, because they are figuring out what they want to do in their future, and it could influence them or guide them down the path they were meant for.”
Volunteering impacts different communities in different ways, and it can even help the Earth as a whole. Every little act can add up to something larger that can help save the environment.
“Green initiative is helping in making a big impact by recycling and composting. That thing alone is really changing the ecosystem of our Earth in a large aspect over time,” Hadley said. “Just like saving our Earth, and reducing the use of plastic.”
At the end of the day, people volunteer for various reasons and for many different types of organizations. According to the U.S. Bureau of Statistics, on an average day in 2022, over 11 million people volunteered. Volunteering is still a large trend in the U.S. and is important to many people.
“It just shows that I like helping the community and it gives me something to do on the weekend, being able to help families with their kids,” Bauer said.
