When building a community service program, be sure to consider what you want students to accomplish. In other words, you want to give them a goal to work towards. Setting clear, reasonable expectations for students to accomplish at the beginning of their careers at your school or organization will help them succeed.

If you want to ensure students are impacted by their service, encourage them to reflect upon their experience serving. When surveyed, 62% of college admissions officers agreed that student reflections in their community service transcript would be valuable. We live in a fast-paced world where we don't often stop to think about what we are doing or why we are doing it. When students have an opportunity to reflect on their experience volunteering, they will realize the value of their service not only on their community but also on themselves. Require your students to write reflections about their volunteering, and ask them to share how their experience has changed them.

Here are a few questions you could ask students as they reflect on their service:

Finally, be sure to share these tips with your students as they write their reflections.

A Quality Reflection

Writing a reflection that is well thought out with correct grammar and spelling is vital to impressing the college admissions officers that will be reading these. Quality reflections should have correct grammar and spelling as well as explain in detail the impact that service opportunity had on the community and especially how it impacted the student themselves.

Another factor to consider is diversity. Offer a wide variety of service opportunities for students to choose from, and encourage (or require) students to serve in multiple areas. From medical to government to local and national nonprofit organizations, there is a wide range of options students can pick. When students volunteer in diverse areas, their worldview widens as they have experiences outside of their comfort zone. This can make students open to different perspectives and become better global citizens.

Finally, a hallmark of successful service programs is student responsibility. Students should be accountable for their own service requirements. This means each student should sign up for their service opportunities, track and log their own hours, write their own reflections, and submit their logs to their teachers independently. When this expectation is set from the beginning, the student will learn how to be responsible for their own success. This also means the teacher/administrator will not have the extra work of tracking down student's hours and information. This can be accomplished by having a single place where students can find opportunities, track and log hours, and write their reflections.

Do you have any ideas on how to create a healthy service program? Write them in the comments section!