EDITORIAL: VOLUNTEERING

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Giving to community can yield multiple benefits

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The university has dedicated itself to community service in the past with the formation of the Rice Student Volunteer Program 10 years ago and the creation of organizations such as Habitat for Humanity (1992), but never has it officially said that community service was its goal. Some students at the time of RSVP's creation were critical of then-President George Rupp because of his lack of interest in community service. Times are definitely changing in terms of the administration's interest in this area.

With the change, students must become more aware of what community service truly means and the benefits which go along with serving.

Benefit One. We don't know if you've noticed, but a lot of people are talking about how to get Rice students past the hedges. How can we get Rice students to break out of that wall of bushes? One such way is through community service. When you are sitting there one Saturday morning staring at nothingness, think about just getting in your car and going out to serve. This gives the student something different to do while getting off campus.

Benefit Two. Another advantage is the opportunity to interact with new people and learn about the hardships of real life. Whether you know it or not, employers of Rice graduates have mainly one complaint about the people that they hire: They lack social skills. Well, here is one solution: serve, interact with people, learn how to be social outside our sheltered lives inside the hedges. If you want to learn how to interact with people in the real world, go to the food bank, invest some of your time at a homeless shelter or visit a home for the elderly. Real-life interactions lead to the development of social skills. But this is just one benefit of serving.

Benefit Three. Aside from the usual "personal gratification" argument and the development of social skills, you will also meet a ton of really cool people. Case in point, at the Habitat site last weekend, one of the sponsored-house group leaders was a Rice graduate by the name of Mr. Fairchild. Mr. and Mrs. Fairchild, both Rice graduates, were accompanied by another Rice grad whose son and grandson both graduated from Rice. It's a small world. Of course, someday, you never know who might pull up at the Habitat site. Maybe some guy with a couple of Secret Service agents. He'd be dressed in blue coveralls and would go by the name of Jimmy. Just food for thought.

The benefits of community service are enormous, especially for Rice students, who seem to lead a sheltered life behind a wall of bushes. This brings us to the final point.

Three-fourths of the 450 people signed up for Outreach Day actually ended up serving; that number is just too low. Last year 600 people signed up. A 25 percent drop seems pretty significant. But the point is this: The number serving on Outreach Day becomes inconsequential if you don't serve during the rest of the year. You can't just go out and serve twice a year with a big group of Rice students. You not only miss out on the true benefits of community service, but you miss out on your own personal enrichment. This is not a question of apathy by any means. All you have to do is pick up the phone and call Meg Grulee at the RSVP office or go out to the Habitat site with David Sissman and Kim Zalewski every week. It's time to serve: yourself, your community, your country and this world.

This item appeared in the Opinion section of the September 29, 1995 issue.

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