A few months after the holidays have passed, many people don’t feel as much pressure to give. While donating to coat drives and collecting toys for children is great around Christmas, it is important to remember that people are always in need. High schoolers can easily volunteer to paint a house, work a food drive or collect money for a soup kitchen. The North Star Editorial Board recommends that students be required to complete five hours of volunteer work before graduating because it is beneficial to students, and it is important for students to give back to the community.

This forced volunteer work may not sound appealing to some, but think about what it entails. Five hours in four years of high school equates to an hour and 15 minutes worth of work each year. It isn’t hard to donate a little more than an hour each year. This pales in comparison to the time teens spend watching TV which, according to Nielsen, a global leader in measurement and information of consumerization, amounts to 22 hours every week.

One of the reasons students should be required to volunteer is because it will help them prepare for college. DoSomething.org, a nonprofit organization that promotes youth volunteering, conducted a Community Service and College Admissions Study in 2011 and found that community service is ranked in the top four most important factors considered in college admissions. Admissions officers from 32 of the top 50 colleges and universities recognized by U.S. News & World Report were surveyed, and the study discovered that community service is something that students need to have on their resumes. By requiring high schoolers to volunteer, North would give students the opportunity to improve their applications and put them ahead of other applicants.

Required volunteering would allow students to gain professional experience from their volunteer work. For example, students that want to go into a career in the medical field can choose to volunteer at a local hospital, such as the St. Louis Children’s Hospital. In addition to the experience, working with others gives teens connections with people that could help them in the future. If someone were to volunteer at the zoo, they could create connections with people that could help him or her get a job as a zoologist later in life. In this case, North would be getting students ready for the working world. If the students were to opt to volunteer in an environment where they would like to potentially have a job, he or she could gain experience that would improve their standings in the job market.

Another reason to require volunteering is because it improves health. According to the University of California, San Diego, serving others reduces stress and makes a person healthier because focusing on someone other than oneself interrupts usual tension-producing patterns. It also promotes personal growth and self-esteem because “understanding community needs helps foster empathy and self-efficacy.” These benefits show that volunteering doesn’t just help the person being served, it also makes the volunteer healthier and happier.

If North were to implement a five-hour volunteer work requirement, it could model the program after Suffolk Public Schools’ system in Virginia. Suffolk’s program gives students the option to complete their 50 hours of volunteer work during the school day. Students at North could gain their hours through work they do with clubs, such as Volunteer Knights, which serves the school throughout the year, and Mentors, where upperclassmen help freshmen acclimate to high school. This volunteer work requirement could be flexible and gained many ways so that students could have many opportunities to work in the community. By making volunteer work mandatory for graduation, North would be better preparing its students for life beyond school.