Giving back to my community is something that had to be taught to me, but something that I have learned to love. To be completely honest, I never really did any community service or volunteering until I got to high school. When I got to high school and was told that there was a requirement of 15 hours per semester of community service, I thought it was a crazy idea. I mean seriously, who gave my high school the right to force me to do community service. I didn’t think that was what serving my community should be about. But of course that didn’t matter, and I did what was expected of me. I started volunteering for an organization called The Friendship Circle, an amazing organization geared towards kids with special needs. I started to love my time there, always looking forward to my Sundays volunteering with them, and all of the sudden I was running for President of my chapter. Looking back, after 4 years of volunteering with The Friendship Circle and 2 years of presidency, I thank my high school for giving me the requirement. If they never forced me to do community service, I never would’ve found something that I now love so much and that gives back to the community at the same time. For this reason, I am very happy that the Honors program at Baruch has a community service requirement. Not so much for me, because after my time with Friendship Circle I would be volunteering now either way. Rather, I’m happy for the people who wouldn’t otherwise be volunteering, the people who might get lucky like me and find something they love.

You can check out the friendship circle here: http://www.friendshipcircle.com/about_friendship_circle_international.asp