About 20 years ago, Father Russell Wohlever dressed up as the six-foot bunny mascot, Mayor Clayton, to visit a young girl in a wheelchair through Give Kids The World nonprofit organization. As he danced, the girl in the wheelchair got up in excitement and started dancing with him – a moment so powerful that her mother broke down in tears. Moments like these are experiences that are unforgettable memories that make serving so impactful.
“Having someone that you don’t know who just wants to do good in the world can have an impact that’s beyond measure,” Wohlever said.
Trinity students are involved in a lot of community service. Out of the whole Trinity community, the school averages 20,267 hours each year. In fact, 88% of the students participate per year, 5% more than the national average in high schools.
There is a huge variety of community service opportunities that students can be involved in within their community.
Most students initially start community service for school requirements, but once they started, it turned into something to be excited about. Also, for junior Dylan Daviduke, it is an opportunity to help others and make friends.
“For Habitat for Humanity that’s how I met my best friend named Josh and I have been lifelong friends since,” Daviduke said.
In Habitat for Humanity, students like junior Josh Pizam build houses from scratch for less fortunate families without homes.
“The brilliant thing about Habitat is, you can physically see the impact you’ve made,” Pizam said. “It’s a literal physical entity, like the house you made. It’s like it is built by your hands. You see it and then you see the family that moves in and it starts from an empty plot of land to a house.”
Other students volunteer at their house of worship. 8th grader Maggie Rose Zissman volunteers at her synagogue helping in the kindergarten and pre-k class. She helps with activities like learning the Hebrew letters, reading books, and playing with them.
Zissman has always loved working with little kids and helping them. The students love having her in the classroom with them.
“I always like when the kids tell me that they’re so happy that I helped them and that they love me and that is kind of my favorite memory of doing it.” Zissman said, “Just seeing how much they appreciate it and value me being with them.”
Sophomore Sophia Caputo does community service in her own unique way. Along with volunteering in Leo club, a junior division of the International Lions Club, Caputo and her family are working to build her own organization called Harp. She is working with UCF and Grace Medical to help establish the organization which is dedicated to hearing aid recycling.
“We [want to]take hearing aids that people have kept because they’re expensive, and not everyone can afford them,” Caputo said, “So, we want to take those, reprogram them, get patients to have them fitted for hearing aids, and then be able to give them to [people with] a lower financial status.”
When students participate in community service, they can gain life-long skills while helping the community.
“It’s a recreational thing that can invoke many learning experiences and skills and friends and all kinds of [opportunities] and everybody should experience it,” Daviduke said.
Community service is a requirement for Trinity students to graduate but it is important to remember how much of an impact you are making in the lives of others.
“Instead of a requirement, I looked at it as an act of kindness,” Daviduke said.
