This week I’m writing about Impact Day, an event taking place on Saturday devoted to getting organizations and individuals involved in community service. Covering this story has gotten me thinking about my own Elon community service experiences, which have been more minimal than I would like.
During my freshman year, I made a series of visits to the Boys and Girls’ Club in Burlington. During those visits I worked mainly with a fourth grader in need of tutoring. It’s definitely true that I enjoyed my visits to the Boys and Girls’ club, and at risk of sounding extremely cliché, I found them highly rewarding. But eventually, due to a lack of time and convenience, I’m sorry to say I stopped going.
Convenience plays such a big role in decision making at college. It can be hard to really devote yourself to volunteer work when you’re already working so hard to balance school work, sports practices, meetings for organizations, a social life, etc. But that doesn’t mean that people don’t want to get involved.
For this reason, I think that Impact Day is a great idea. It’s commendable that Delta Sigma Theta has stepped up in organizing it. On a campus where students are so busy and so involved with their own work and achievements, I think a lot of people will benefit from a day that both draws attention to the value of community service and helps make it so accessible to students.