Undecided: navigating life and learning after high school

Community Development

You don’t have to go anywhere to take time off or schedule a gap year experience. Wherever you live, you can find people and organizations in your own backyard in need of your help. In fact, if you’re not yet inclined to devote all of your working hours to service as we discussed previously, you can design a hybrid experience by combining a part-time job with community development work as a coach in youth sports, a tutor or mentor to at-risk youth, a volunteer at your local hospital or animal rescue shelter, a community gardener, or a campaigner for a candidate or cause you believe in.

The goal of community development is to create stability, safety, and economic opportunity where you live. Not only is this a noble goal in and of itself, but it is self-serving since a more stable community means a better life for you and your family. It is also an inexpensive way to get a lot of hands-on experience quickly and to make good connections with your neighbors. Getting involved with your community can lead to great things. Community organizers are the earthworms of politics and progressive change, and like President Obama, your work in your own community could lead to you making history. Plus, helping and educating the people you have grown up around can feel more satisfying than working with strangers. If you have any political ambitions, or a cause you believe in, or you simply want to understand the great underpinnings of society, getting involved in the nuts-and-bolts of community improvement is an important first step.

THE RED CROSS

More than eight hundred Red Cross chapters, located in communities across the United States and its territories, provide a variety of services: blood drives; courses in first aid, CPR, and water safety; connection with family members overseas in the military; assistance in times of disaster; and international tracing and disaster relief. As a young volunteer, you could serve as a member of a local youth council or board or attend a leadership development camp. If you are seventeen or older, you can donate blood or help with blood drives, provide services to veterans and their families, and be trained to lend a hand when disaster strikes. Through the Red Cross, you can get babysitter training and take first aid, CPR, aquatics, and water safety classes. You can also receive training to serve as an instructor or lifeguard.

LITERACY VOLUNTEER

Local and state literacy programs are always looking for new volunteers. In most states, all that is required is a high school diploma or GED and demonstrated proficiency with reading English. The National Literacy Project is an umbrella organization that tracks literacy rates and implements coursework in elementary and secondary schools. You can go to literacydirectory.org to search for a program or service in your area and apply to become a volunteer. Alternatively, check out your local library and see how you can help there. Volunteer in the stacks, organize events and readings, read to young children, or help with the annual used book fair. There are many ways your local and school libraries could use your energy. Libraries are a critical and often overlooked gathering place for people of all ages and stages, and they are the custodians of our nation’s written history.

FOOD BANKS, MEALS ON WHEELS, HOMELESS SHELTERS, 211 INTERVENTION HOTLINES

It is probably no big surprise that help is needed all over the place when it comes to these charitable services. The best way to find out where they are is to look online or in your local phone book. You will need to be trained in 211 intervention services before you begin answering the phone, but anyone over eighteen is welcome.

AT-RISK YOUTH

Become a big brother or sister at your local branch of the Boys and Girls Club. Volunteer at the childcare facility of your YMCA or YWCA. Fight violence and drug-use in your community by joining D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education). Create a Speak up! branch in your town to tackle bullying and address issues impacting the kids today. Mentor a child at a local arts program or creative writing center. In Portland, the Telling Room teaches creative storytelling skills to over 2,000 kids a year, and its sister program, 826 Valencia, does the same in many cities across the nation. If you love to act, get involved with a group like the Actor’s Gang or the Theatre Lab and help incarcerated youth find their artistic expression through drama.

“I became a canvasser with the California League of Conservation Voters because I cared about a few issues that were coming up for referendum in my city. We would meet every day in the afternoons at the headquarters in San Francisco, and then teams of us were shipped out in vans to the suburbs. Our job was to knock on people’s doors, give them our spiel, and sign them up to the league. I felt really good about the work I was doing, but knocking on people’s doors at dinner time was really hard! They would meet you with an expression like you were carrying the plague. Some just slammed the door. Within days, I figured out which doors to skip, just by the make of their cars and what was on their porch. Sometimes, people were really nice—and it turned out I was really good at getting people to write checks. (We counted our “earnings” in the van on the way back to the city and got paid a commission based on how much we had raised.) It was a lot like being a door-to-door salesperson, only you are selling ideals. I stayed for about three months, through the election, then eventually moved on to work for an advertising company that specialized in political campaigns.”

—T. Anderson, media manager

COMMUNITY GARDENS

If you live in an urban area, check out the development opportunities at your local community garden or search the directory at communitygardening.org. Growing food for yourself and your neighbors is a fundamental way to connect with people, since we all have to eat. Besides the obvious benefits, learning to grow food will teach you about health, nutrition, farming, delivery systems, and maybe some cooking. You will also be helping to green the landscape and protect the environment. Getting involved doesn’t take much skill initially, just a desire to get your hands dirty and your thumb a little greener.

COMFORT KEEPING

These are the services you can perform for specific people in your neighborhood. Maybe an elderly woman needs to be driven to appointments. Or a single mom could use help with shopping or child care. Or an older couple can’t keep up with their lawn or house maintenance. Or maybe somebody is grieving or alone and would like to spend time with you in a structured way. If you know how to walk and talk, you can probably find somebody who would appreciate your help or attention. Ask your parents or a local medical clinic, hospital, or senior center.

There’s a world of want out there that could benefit from your participation. Every moment has the potential to be productive, if you just open your mind and put yourself out there. Honestly, you don’t know where it will lead and how much it will give back to you—now and down the road.