UMass Boston – Golden Key
2003 Community Service Essay Contest Winner
by Alexis Davis, West Roxbury High School
Being involved in the community is very important. Your community is the place where you, together with others, live; therefore, involvement in it means a lot. Involvement in the community can help bring out many positive characteristics in you. Getting involved in your community does not only affect oneself, but it also helps to build the community around you. I had the chance to get involved with a wonderful service that is provided in my community. Both my character and the community benefited from it.
Community involvement brings out the best in people. It does this by bringing out some type of positive characteristic in oneself. When being involved in your community, a great characteristic that is always shown is selflessness. The person is there for the community, to help others or to improve something in their community, not just to think about him or herself or be selfish. People can’t be selfish while being involved in the community because they are not only benefiting themselves but also many other people or things around them. Being involved shows that you can be a very caring and thoughtful person. It also shows that you are able to work well with others. The characteristics that are brought out when one is involved with his or her community are positive and can be used anywhere he or she might go.
Being involved in the community does not just help build your character; it also helps to bring your community to the highest level. Community involvement helps improve the quality of life for everyone in the community. It does this by making the community safer, cleaner, and more aware of the problems that it might be facing. If more people get involved in their community, they can help improve the problem. If more people knew about the problems in their community, they will be more apt to fix them. Having all of this involvement in one’s community can help make the community stay strong and last longer.
During my sophomore year in high school, I participate in a homework help service through the Boston Public Libraries. Every Monday and Wednesday I would go to the Fields Corner Branch Library, which is in my community, and help children from the ages of five to thirteen years old with their homework in various subjects. While doing this, my character grew stronger. I did not worry about myself as much as I used to, and I also gained a greater amount of patience. Here I learned how to work with all types of people and students. I cannot say I actually changed my community dramatically, but I can say I did help provide a safe, quiet environment for students to come and get their homework done. Knowing that I was involved in this type of service feels great. To know I was part of something that has accomplished something for the future of our community makes it all worthwhile.
One does not have to change everything about his or her community to get the satisfaction of being a good citizen. It can help one build your character, and improve the quality of your community. My personal experience with community involvement helped me as a person and the community around me. In conclusion, community involvement is very important and anyone can enjoy the positive feeling or experience from it.