At STA, students are constantly being presented with opportunities to give back to our community. We pride ourselves on statements such as “neighbor to neighbor without distinction” and “in this house, all must be friends, all my be loved, all must be held dear, all must be helped.” But how much are we really helping?

Sure, one can say our school does our part to give back. The Community Service Club annually hosts a food drive. National Honors Society just held a fundraiser for used winter clothing items. We have to complete 90 hours of service to graduate.

Clearly, there are plenty of girls that genuinely engage in community service. They’re the few that make service at STA seem successful. And they deserve a huge thank you. But at the same time, they should be encouraging all the other students to care about getting involved as well.

Way too many people of the STA community rely on these clubs and students to do the community service for them. During Food for Thought drive, how many girlsoutside of Community Service Club actually helped? Only 70. And sure, they collected a lot of canned goods from the neighborhood, but how many did they collect from STA itself? Only 500. As a school of 562 girls that pride ourselves on community service, it’s frankly embarrassing that each girl couldn’t bring in one can.

It’s a shame that at STA, some girls have come to skate by, doing the bare minimum when it comes to community service. Some only volunteer at events when its required as part of a club membership. Some only complete 90 hours of service to meet graduation requirements. Some only bring in contributions if it means their advisory wins free pizza.

As students, why aren’t we contributing more? Maybe we’re too caught up trying to balance our sports with our homework. Maybe some of us think we’re too busy. Maybe there’s no reward.

But this isn’t about us. It’s about others. The only reward we really need is the fulfilling feeling of helping others. If we had just as many girls bringing in canned goods as the amount of girls that bring in a dollar to buy a donut every Thursday, we may actually make a bigger impact.

STA needs to bring back the pride in community service that the Sisters of St. Joseph established. And what better time to do so than right now. The Sisters of St. Joseph are currently celebrating their 175 years of serving the world. And in honor of this anniversary, they are asking people at every institution they sponsor to pledge 175 minutes of service before March 25.

That’s only three hours. Three hours of tutoring a fellow student. Three hours of volunteering at a nursing home. Three hours of playing with kids at Operation Breakthrough. Three hours of selfless service back to the community. Three hours of honoring the Sisters of St. Joesph.

After all, these women are first hand examples of women that have used their gifts and talents to help others. Service was a strong value of the foundation of STA, a strong value in our mission, and should be a strong value in our hearts. We need to find new motivation to give back. We need to volunteer for others, especially during this time of the year.