Throughout middle school, many teachers have constantly told me that I needed to volunteer. That I needed volunteer hours to get into the National Honor Societies, to get into college, etc. I remember one of these instances very well. It was the beginning of my 7th-grade year at Unami Middle School and my science teacher had given my class that speech about how community service was important. I thought about what she said. I knew that she was right, that I should start volunteering, but frankly I was a little scared. I had absolutely no idea where to start. I went my entire 7th-grade year without volunteering. In 8th grade, I was able to find a soup kitchen where I volunteered a few hours with a friend. Then in 9th grade, I had a little bit more luck: I volunteered at Impact Thrift Store, CB Cares Pumpkinfest, the Mill Creek Musical, and a few spring fairs. During that time, I was able to meet quite a few event organizers and volunteer coordinators that I would later contact in order to provide opportunities for Volunteer Teens. At this point, I realized that I enjoyed volunteering and helping out my community, so when I started at CB South I was looking for a way to get more involved. I attended an informational meeting for South’s local chapter of Key Club. While attending this meeting the advisor told us about a leadership position where we would be able to take charge of one event. This got my attention as I realized that I wanted to do more than just attend volunteer events. That’s when I got the idea to start my own volunteer group. I thought back to how difficult it was for me to find volunteer opportunities in middle school. So I set out to create a group that would do all the hard work of finding quality volunteer opportunities and make them super accessible to anyone that was interested. In October of 2016, with the partnership of CB Cares Educational Foundation, CB Cares Volunteer Teens was born. We started at Unami Middle School before opening the group to all 5 middle schools the following year. As the years went on, CB Cares Volunteer Teens started to take off, with more and more volunteers joining and attending events. When we created the group, I knew it needed to have a few key characteristics to ensure it was successful. First, our signup process was super simple and free; if someone wanted to volunteer, all they had to do was fill out a form and get opportunities sent to their email. Second, we kept a detailed record of every event the volunteers attended and how many hours they had, so when someone wanted to apply for organizations like NJHS they could easily see all their hours. Third, we sought out high-quality volunteer events as well as a few unique volunteer events, so there would be something for everyone. Lastly, every volunteer event we attended or hosted was supervised by a high school leader. This ensured that at every event there was someone in charge that the volunteers could go to. After running this group for three years, going from 0 to 5000 volunteer hours, I have seen some volunteers do some incredible things for their community. The next group of leaders has now taken over CB Cares Volunteer Teens and I am excited to see where this group goes in the future.
-Daniel Remishevsky
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Q: What is your favorite subject and why? Probably advisory because that is when we let loose and relax. -Lauren M. My favorite subject is math because I enjoy using formulas to figure out problems. I love algebra because you can plug your answers back into the problem to see if you are right. I find the whole subject very interesting. -Rachel D. My favorite subject is English because I love reading and writing. -Cheyenne T. Q: What has been the highlight of your school year so far? Probably being given a higher role in running Tamanend iTeam. -Lauren M. My 8th grade year was a lot of fun. I made tons more friends, and it was much easier maneuvering around the school since I had been here for a year already. I enjoyed my locker much more than my previous one (which was 1001, a horrible spot!). All my classes were close to each other which was way more easy than before! I liked that 8th graders were treated with much more respect than before, in 7th grade we were babied to say the least. I also was much less confident in 7th grade because I barely knew my way around the school. Eighth grade was certainly a step up. With more homework, plenty more responsibility, and having to be “role models for the seventh graders”, the school year was jam-packed full of stress. I definitely struggled a lot with managing homework and after school activities such as ballet and ski club. I made it work, but now it makes me wonder how this ninth grade school year is going to turn out. I have Marching Band twice a week and games on Fridays, I have ballet Monday's, Wednesday's, and every other Thursday. This is gonna be a stressful year! A few dislikes I have about eighth grade include the condition of the bathrooms. While my school's bathrooms are clean, in the girl’s room the supplies dispenser hasn’t been refilled in years and I am barely able to borrow supplies from friends. It would be much, much easier if the staff restocked the dispensers. I am sure I am not the only girl who believes this would be a good idea. 8th grade school year overall was so much fun education-wise because I really enjoyed my classes. -Anonymous The school year hasn’t been very long so far, but my highlight of the year is probably social studies class, or learning Spanish. In social studies class, my teacher is very funny and enthusiastic. This makes it easy to engage in the class. I also love my Spanish class. It has been very fun and interesting learning how to speak Spanish. I also enjoyed picking my Spanish name. -Rachel D. My little brother auditioning for chorus. -Cheyenne T. My best memory at school so far was when I competed in the Science Fair. I had such a fun time making my project, and the satisfaction of winning 1st place for my category is something that will fuel me for years to come. Like all my classmates, I spent all of my 8th grade year working on my project. It was about Spectrometers, which are machines that are used to determine the composition of planets and stars far away. For example, looking at the Fraunhofer Lines in the light from another planet can help you determine what the planet is made of. This is how scientists everywhere figured out that the sun is mainly made from Hydrogen and Helium, without having to actually visit the sun and take samples (which I’m sure is not yet possible). Every couple of weeks, we would complete different sections of our project and turn them in to our science teachers. Once we completed all the “tipsheets”, we put them together to form our project. Making the poster for my project was really fun to do. I got a bad papercut! Stapling and pasting my papers to the board was a long and laborious task for sure. I even had to rehearse what I would say to the judges, when they asked me questions. It was very stressful, as nobody knew the exact questions they would ask; this meant we had to know our own projects inside and out so we could answer anything about them. When the time came to go to the Fair, I was very nervous! But I’m still very glad I did it, because I won $50 to put straight into my savings account. Yay! -Anonymous Q: What holidays or events are you looking forward to? Christmas and the South Arts and Crafts festival. -Lauren M. I am looking forward to Halloween and the fall season in general. I would love to get involved in Halloween events for CB cares this year. I am looking forward to the mega food truck event. I would also like to get involved on Martin Luther King day. I am looking forward to the winter holidays as well. I would like to volunteer at Valley Square. -Rachel D. Christmas. -Cheyenne T. Q: What is your favorite thing about Fall? Jumping in leaf piles and pumpkin pie. -Lauren M. One of my favorite things about fall is the weather. I love how it is not too warm and not too cold. I also like all of the pumpkin themed things, like pumpkin muffins and lattes. Fall is my favorite season. My birthday is also in the fall, so that is another one of my favorite things about fall. -Rachel D. Everything. -Cheyenne T. Q: If you had to design a haunted hayride, how would you design it? Hmmm... I don’t know if I would design one, but I would probably make it so halfway through the ride the driver would look back at them with a skeletal face instead of his/her real face. -Lauren M. If I got to design a haunted hayride, I would make lots of tunnels to go through. It would be cool if it was Zombie themed. I would add cool sound affects to add to the experience. I would add fire for decoration. I would add a different scary theme to each section of the haunted hay ride. -Rachel D. Q: Why did you decide to join CB Cares Volunteer Teens? Because I wanted to help out my community and my friends are doing it, too. What better way to help out than with your friends? -Lauren M. I joined CB care teens because some friends recommended it to me. They said it was a fun way to volunteer, and it is. I also like volunteering in general, so I wanted to get involved with CB cares. It is also a way to bond and hangout with other people I know, while volunteering. -Rachel D. Because I love helping people. -Cheyenne T. Q: What has been the best event that you volunteered at and why? My favorite volunteering event so far was actually the one I most recently participated in: screwing in lightbulbs and fixing up all the snowflake light structures. This took a very long time to do, and my hands hurt so much afterwards, but hanging out with the other volunteers was a lot of fun and I really felt that I was contributing to my community. Though it was a while ago, this was my favorite one because of how much work we did and how satisfied with myself I was afterwards. And we got free food! Even now I look upon the memory fondly. Helping out my hometown is something that gives me satisfaction and happiness in all its forms. I hope to continue with the CB Volunteer Teens for as long as I can, and I can’t wait for my next opportunity to volunteer. -Anonymous Probably astronomy night because I liked looking through some telescopes and I love the night sky. -Lauren M. I would say the best event I have volunteered at was the I run 4 life program at Jamison. I personally like to run, and I always wanted to help out at the program because I used to be part of the program. It was fun helping and hanging out with the kids. I got to help out at the color run and the obstacle course. -Rachel D. I’ve volunteered at many events before and I personally think that many of them are very entertaining and fun. One event that I really enjoyed was the Easter Egg Hunt at Valley Square. I really enjoyed this event because many of my friends also volunteered on the same day, and my friend and I both had signed up to be at the tattoo station. Thinking back to that day, I’m glad I signed up for that position because it felt amazing to help my community and meet all the little kids and even adults who wanted fun and cute tattoos to be tattooed onto them. One woman even asked me to put a tattoo on her cheeks! Although it was awkward at first, in the end, we were all laughing and having fun. Another event that I absolutely loved was the winter festival. My friend and I, as well as another girl, we all were signed up to hand out hot chocolate and cookies. It was a very cold day and our stand was located across the street from the administrative office at Valley Square. To prepare for our stand, my friend and I had to make a couple big batches of hot chocolate and then carry it out to our stand. We thought all the hot chocolate would be enough to last for the whole day. However, after a couple hours and batches of hot chocolate later, we realized that we only had 1 jug of cocoa powder left. This was not a good sign because there was a crowd of cold and thirsty people waiting for their drink. Furthermore, we also began to run out of whip cream and chocolate chips for the hot chocolate. Many times, we had to tell people that hot chocolate was coming in 10 minutes which did not end really well, but most people were understanding. Overall, this winter event was a really fun opportunity and experience for me to hang out with my friends and help my community. A volunteer event that did not end well in my opinion, was when I volunteered at the Rocks and Mineral Convention at Churchville Nature Center. I did not enjoy this volunteer experience because after my friends and I signed up for what positions we wanted, after getting there, we weren’t doing what we signed up for. That wasn’t a big problem since my friends and I were positioned pretty close. However, later on, my friend got moved to a separate room and I was stuck with trading prizes, which I did not sign up for. Moreover, I was at Churchville Nature Center for 5-6 hours and I was NOT able to sit down at all because there were no more chairs available. One thing that I enjoyed from this event was that I made new friends with kids from other schools that also came to volunteer. -Nicole H. Q: Write your own question! "What is your funniest sunburn story?"
My funny sunburn story is from when I went to LBI (Long Beach Island) for the first time and we spent a long time on the beach. My friends and I had so much fun going to amusement parks and going mini-golfing (I won!) in the small town. The ice cream there tasted amazing. My friends both got soft-serve, but I decided to get the wildest flavor I could find. ‘Birthday chocolate Extravaganza’ surprisingly tasted great! Although I wouldn’t recommend doing much exercise immediately afterwards. That day we decided to walk down to the beach and splash in the waves. The sand was so soft there! It was super sunny outside, so we re-applied sunscreen a couple times, but we all fell asleep face-down and slept for hours! My back still hasn’t recovered yet. Leaning against chairs or slouching hurt a lot, so I had to sit up perfectly straight most of the time. As you can imagine, this was not fun when all I wanted to do was sit down on the couch and watch a movie. I looked like a robot all the time, any friends I had over would ask why on earth I was acting like military personnel. At least my posture has since improved dramatically! I spent so long applying lotion to my back, hoping it would help the positively gross peeling. It still looks like a self-tanning experiment went horribly wrong. That was a lesson learned, for sure. I will never underestimate the power of the Sun any longer! -Anonymous "What is something you do to de-stress?" Skiing is something that I do when I need to relax and take my mind off things. Whenever I’m stressed about something, skiing makes me forget all about it. Maybe it’s because you have to be paying full attention to what you’re doing as you ski down a hill. I have to focus on all these things: keeping my knees bent (but strong) so they don’t hurt when I land jumps, focusing on my skis to stop them from crossing so I don’t fall dramatically, and holding on tight to my poles! The last thing I want is to crawl back up a hill wearing my ski boots because I dropped a pole. When it’s not wintertime, I can often relax by writing short stories. My cousin and I exchange writing pieces every Saturday and it always gives me something to look forward to. However, I am not very good at typing. This certainly does make it a little harder! When I don’t feel like typing, reading is just as relaxing. My favorite books make me feel like they are transporting me to another place, and they help me take my mind off things just as well as writing and skiing do. Watching TV, especially horror movies/tv shows help me distract myself the best. The horrific and suspenseful atmosphere always makes me give it my full attention. The gorier and more stressful to watch, the better! It helps me focus on the main characters problems instead of homing in on my own; similar to when I read books. -Anonymous 'What did I do this summer?" As per usual, My summer is packed with plans. Usually as soon as school ends, my family visits the amusement park Knoebels for a few days. This is one of my favorite places because the rides are so much fun! My absolute favorite are the rollercoasters. The sense of thrill is simply amazing and so much fun to experience. After Knoebels, I plan on participating in Dance Camp at my ballet studio. This is when we spend the week learning new moves and practicing old ones. It’s a very draining thing to participate in, because it is a nonstop workout! I eat and drink like a horse during camp week. I have to deal with the leg cramps and muscle stitches if I don’t warm up correctly before dance, so I have to make sure to do that before class. After ballet camp is over my family travels up to Vermont for a week. The drive is 7 hours! It’s worth it, however, because our house at Lake Dunmore is beautiful. Its right near a nice town that has good ice cream and lots of cute shops. Once we get back from Lake Dunmore, it's off to CB West Marching Band Camp for me. For 5 days we go from morning to afternoon out on the high school fields doing drill. Its so much fun, but I am sweaty and dehydrated by the end of each day. Once the camp ends I am back to Vermont again to visit my cousins. We go bowling and get a ton of prizes at the arcade! Summer is over soon, and back to school. I sure had a good summer this year. -Anonymous "How does volunteering make you feel?" Volunteering gives me a sense of happiness that is different from any other kind. There’s “I just ate a lot of yummy ice cream” happy, “I just got a 100% on my test” happy, and a “I won the lottery” kind of happy. But volunteering makes me feel satisfied with myself and comforted. I know that I did something good to help my community or my peers, and that happiness can’t be found in very many other places. Since I am in the National Junior Honors Society (NJHS), we also need 10 hours of volunteer work under our belt by next March. Contributing to this blog, as well as other activities that I’ve done, have put good time towards that goal! The benefits are endless. While keeping up with NJHS and also helping others, I am left feeling satisfied and complete. Writing these paragraphs gives me other benefits too. I can practice speeding up by typing (which I am not very good at), and I can express creativity in the words I choose. Since school has only just started, we haven’t started any writing assignments yet. So, for me this is the perfect opportunity to write my heart out and type until my fingers bleed (though hopefully it won’t come to that). “Volunteers do not necessarily have the time; they just have the heart.” ~Elizabeth Andrew. This quote perfectly sums up how I view volunteering. With so many outside of school activities, its hard to keep up with the CB Volunteer Teens and schoolwork in general. That’s why the group is so amazing. No matter how many times you volunteer or how little times you do it, the amazing feeling remains nonetheless. -Anonymous "What are some ways you get involved outside of CB Cares?" I get involved by helping at my school. I help at the KAD charity basketball tournament at Tamanend Middle school. I helped by selling drinks. I help at my synagogue with the inclusion program. My cousin is a teacher at an autistic school, and I would help the students there. During the school year, I help sell tickets for the fall and winter dances. -Rachel D. "The last time I did a random act of kindness and how it made me feel" The last time I did a Random Act Of Kindness was when I helped out one of my friends (who shall remain unnamed). It was the second day of school and she didn’t have her syllabus signed. Our teacher told everyone it was totally fine if they brought it in the next day, but she was still nervous that she was going to be the only one who didn’t turn it in. I promised her that I would turn mine in the next day along with her, so she wouldn’t have to be alone. Her anxiety ceased, and she thanked me a lot. It felt really nice to help her out. I know how I would have felt if I was the only one who didn’t turn it in right away: very embarrassed! I had a good feeling all day because of her. Her anxiousness was clear, and thanks to me it was gone. The next day we both turned our papers in at the same time (with no consequence) and she smiled at me. Making her feel better fueled me through the day. Lesson learned! Helping others can make you feel confident and happy for hours on end. Though it might seem like a big effort, it really isn’t! All it takes is a couple kind words, maybe a compliment or two, and the satisfaction is lasts for a long time. And when you’re on the receiving end, you are so grateful for the act of kindness someone has bestowed upon you. Whether it’s easing your nerves about a project, or complimenting your outfit, it makes you feel great to be helped and it feels great to do the helping! Keep this in mind next time you are at school and see someone who’s having a bad day. -Anonymous "What is the most recent event that you have volunteered at?" The most recent event I participated in was when I worked on all the light up snowflakes for the streets of Doylestown. Each lightbulb had to be screwed in, tested, and replaced if needed. The task took us a whopping six hours, but it was so worth it. My hands, arms, and legs hurt from constantly screwing things in and standing up for so long. There were so many snowflakes! Each volunteer had a different job. Some were unloading the container of snowflakes and setting them up for us. Others checked the bulbs and unscrewed the ones that didn’t work, and then me and a few people screwed in the new lightbulbs. Each snowflake came in pairs, so both were connected and would go on opposite sides of the same lamp post. This made it difficult to move them around individually, because they were attached together! Though this experience was long ago, I had a lot of fun. -Anonymous |