What drives teenagers to spend their weekends helping strangers instead of hanging out with friends? For some students at Skyline, the answer is simple: community.

When most students go out with their friends on the weekend, some students take that chance to go package and buy food for the homeless, help ill people get to where they are going, or play sports games with people with disabilities. “I would get non-perishable foods like canned food and mac & cheese and I would pack it into boxes,” said Marissa Riley (‘29).“Then they would deliver them to homeless shelters.” 

One way that people give back is by cooking food and giving out hot meals for the homeless or the less fortunate at the Hope Clinic. So many people do it for different reasons as well, some people do it because they are bored and some people do it because they have to, “It was just something I was interested in,” said Annika Darragh (‘27). Either way this is a great way to give back.

You can find so many different places to volunteer, one being Trinity Health, where you provide assistance to the social workers. “At Trinity Health I just like to welcome people in and then help them to get where they’re going and stuff like that,” said Olivia Watters (‘26).

How long do Skyline volunteers really spend giving back? How much of their day does it take up? Sometimes it doesn’t take up much time, “I volunteer every other week on Sundays,” says Darragh. But others have had to cut back on hours because of school, “at Trinity Health it’s in the summer it was like one every week a 4-Hour shift,” says Watters.

Here is a link to an article that lists many different places to volunteer at.