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 I 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; ifsomeone 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.