The first semester is coming to a close, and I, like other sophomores, am starting to regret my decision to finish only 4 out of my 40 hours of volunteer work. Yes that’s right, sophomores are required to complete 40 hours of community service instead of attending the annual Jellis Block. While the new addition to the Freshman year is participating in the Public Purpose Program, the newest addition to Sophomore year is volunteering.

By completing these 40 hours, sophomores will be able to contribute more to the community than they could accomplish during Jellis block. However, sophomores are struggling with time management.  Sophomore year has not turned out to be quite the breeze that people made it out to be. The homework load is piled higher and extracurriculars use the few waking hours left. Of course, some free time has been simply procrastinated away. Thus, some face the challenge of completing 20+ hours in the second semester, arguably, the busiest time of year.

The saving graces of the challenge of serving 40 hours of community service are the sophomore reps and The Center. Both have been supplying the class with ideas, contacts, and service events; they have created spreadsheets and organized group events. Volunteer opportunities so far have included beach cleanups, volunteering with the Curry Senior Center, volunteering with Scrap, working with Kids & Art, helping to set up an altar installation for the Dia de Los Muertos Festival and tutoring kids from Breakthrough San Francisco and Presidio Knolls School.

Leila Kashani, one of the three sophomore reps, says that, “We definitely want to take initiative and help out the sophomores. We want to make sure that people are well equipped and hopefully limit the number of people who are scrambling at the end. We have been meeting with Alan Wesson and we set up two dates when we can bring up to 15 people to Glide for volunteer work. We are doing our best to encourage people and to try and help them finish the 40 hours as soon as possible.”

As well as the opportunities that the reps are providing, a useful resource is the Volunteer-Work-Intern-Experience website that the Center manages. The wesbite is frequently updated with volunteer opportunities, many more than what are posted in the eTiger. Volunteer-Work-Intern-Experience can be found on the LWHS website under Resources. Discovering it was, for me, equivalent to discovering a gold mine.

Although this new addition to Sophomore year, the hours of community service, was a little unexpected, we have been given the resources and the encouragement to accomplish it. Hopefully, not only will we get those hours done, but we will also feel just the tiniest bit better about our place in the community. With the help of our lovely class leaders and help from The Center, the sophomore class can pull through. Some advice to next year’s sophomores, do not procrastinate.