Introduction Earning the Presidential Volunteer Service Award (PVSA) as a high school student by meeting the requirements through a certified organization and hours of work can be an extremely rewarding and fulfilling experience for nominees.

Today, we will be walking you through precisely what that entails, and will help you find your passion in the form of community service to help those around you and prosper in your high school journey.

Onwards!

What is the Presidential Volunteer Service Award?

The PVSA was established in 2003 to honor people (not necessarily students) who have contributed a significant amount of their time and effort to the act of volunteer service.

It celebrates the American tradition and rooted principle of servitude to oneself and one's country, encouraging and inspiring youth to give back to the communities around them.

Eligibility Requirements So how can we be eligible for this award?

Below are some criteria: Voluntary Service: Your volunteer work must be voluntary.

It absolutely cannot be something that your school or any other third-party institution mandates for you to do, and cannot benefit your own personal record in any way.

No Compensation: You should not be getting paid for your actions.

This also extends past monetary compensation and concerns a wide variety of ways such as being gift-given or freely interned for your work.

Benefiting Others: Your service must demonstrably benefit others.

This can be proven through numbers, impact, or letters of recommendation from the head organization for which you are serving to substantiate the degree of your impact.

U.

S.

Citizenship: Due to the fact that this award is strictly distributed solely to students in the U.

S.

A, proving one's citizenship via their passport or any other means through which the head organization is able to verify citizenships must be done before receiving the award.

Organizational Requirements: Depending on the verified organization (which should be the first thing that you check when you enter into one) that you are completely part of your servitude for, you must meet a separate set of personal requirements for them on top of the hours themselves in order to receive the award from them.

Examples of this include not being able to receive the award without at least 70% of the hours in a category being from the specified organization or needing to complete work In several separate areas of the organization all together.

Finding Impactful Volunteering Opportunities for PVSA Identify Your Passions Start by reflecting on your interests and passions.

What causes or issues resonate with you?

Whether it’s environmental conservation, education, healthcare, or animal welfare, choose areas that ignite your enthusiasm and chase after them, no matter how far astray they may seemingly be leading you initially.

Local Opportunities Explore local organizations, schools, and community centers.

Attend volunteer fairs, visit nonprofit websites, and inquire about ongoing projects.

Look for opportunities that align with your interests, and try to pursue them.

A simple google search online may not result in the most credible or platforms for you to explore, but asking trusted individuals who have experience helping students find such opportunities could be helpful so long as you steer them in the right direction first.

To reiterate/emphasize: DO NOT simply just chase after any opportunity that you think would be a shortcut towards gaining your hours.

You NEED to ensure that the community service actually aligns with your interest so that you can gain something out of it that goes beyond just ticking off a box on a piece of paper.

Online Platforms Websites like Idealist, VolunteerMatch, and JustServe connect volunteers with relevant projects.

Search based on your location and interests.

These platforms often list both short-term and long-term opportunities, so there are a variety of customization that you can set in order to tailor the fields that you are looking to help out in specifically for you.

School Clubs and Events Join school clubs or create your own, with caution.

Clubs are a lot of work, so once again, if the cause that you are trying to help out with your community service is not something that you genuinely care about, do not box yourself in with it.

Additionally, it may be advisable to collaborate with classmates to organize community service events, as teamwork helps speeded the process significantly while not deterring the number of hours that you ultimately receive.

Participate in school-sponsored initiatives, such as food drives, blood donation campaigns, or environmental cleanups as well, because your school can recognize your work for these initiatives on top of them counting for the PVSA award.

Applying for the PVSA Tracking Your Hours Use tools like x2VOL or Google Sheets to log your service hours.

Additionally, you should set up a profile on the PVSA website and enter your hours there, or use any other tracking sites that you find would be beneficial towards organizing your hours in a detailed way.

Remember: most organizations expect you to track hours in their database AND on your own, so if you accidentally undercount in your behalf and lose out on hours after hours of hard work, and they don't correct you?

No, it wasn't a waste of time because you still helped out your community.

But it certainly is frustrating to see that hard work be unrecognized.

Certifying Organizations To apply for the PVSA, you need a certifying organization.

Check if the organization you volunteered with is certified to administer PVSA awards.

If not, encourage them to apply on the PVSA website, or apply on their behalf with their permission.

Not sure if your organization counts?

According to the official PVSA website, The following entity types are eligible to become Certifying Organizations if they meet the threshold requirements above: Nonprofit organization Community-based organization Faith-based organization Business School (K12, college, and universities) or institutions of higher learning National Service programs Civic, fraternal or service organization Membership or trade associations Federal, state or local government agencies U.

S. military and state entities abroad (i. e.

U.

S. military bases and U.

S. embassies) Verification Process Submit your service record to the certifying organization.

They will verify your hours.

If everything checks out, you’ll receive official recognition.

Typically, organizations have a set period of time in which they cycle through the PVSA application process, so in order to not miss out, we recommend that you email them beforehand in order to find out when the next session is.

Sometimes organizations reach out to students/people who they believe could meet the requirements, so in those case, be on the lookout.

What Does the PVSA Give You?

Prestige and Recognition The PVSA is a prestigious national honor.

It acknowledges your commitment to service and sets you apart as a dedicated volunteer.

It also looks good on a base level for college applications, especially if it helps build the foundation for a passion/purpose that you maintained and developed throughout high school.

As far as what specifically you receive, here they are: Award Levels Bronze: 100-174 hours (ages 14 and under), 100-249 hours (ages 15+) Silver: 175-249 hours (ages 14 and under), 250-399 hours (ages 15+) Gold: 250+ hours (ages 14 and under), 400+ hours (ages 15+) Lifetime Achievement: 4,000+ hours over a lifetime Award Packages Certifying organizations can choose from certificates, pins, coins, and medals to recognize your achievements.

These can look really cool and we would recommend hanging them up on your wall!

Conclusion about PVSA We're going to be real with you right now

- many of you are reading this article and currently thinking to yourself: Yeah yeah, helping out the community is nice and all, but I just want to say that I volunteered on my college application.

To that, I contend: Colleges simply do not care.

In fact, it may actually hurt your chances.

Let me explain.

More specifically, if colleges see that all you did was 100 hours helping out on a book drive during your freshman year of high school to get the gold PVSA award, and then never volunteered again and applied for a CS major, then admissions officers will shake their head in shame.

Clearly, you had no passion and were volunteering simply for the sake of being decorated with another award, and that is a no-go.

Let's forget about colleges for a moment (I know, it's hard).

If you really look inside yourself and search for your meaning in life, you want to get some sort of true fulfillment from the things that you do.

That.

Starts.

Here.

Find something that you genuinely like, and let volunteering be your outlet through which you share that passion by giving back to the rest of the world, a smile finally on your face as you do so in the way you love.

Then, with colleges still at the very back of your mind, you can shed the positive changes upon the world that YOU want to see in it.

At the end of the day, THAT will be what college admission officers cherish

- you doing what makes you you.

Want to Learn how to Volunteer with STEM Research the Right Way?

If you are a high school student intrigued by the world of STEM, and want to serve your community in a mentally stimulating way through a science research project that can impact the world big-time, then check out this FREE course here guiding you through STEM opportunities and research: https://www. rishabacademy. com/guide.