Today’s guest post comes from Youth Service America.
Editor’s Note: Simone Bernstein is a sophomore at St. Bonaventure University in upstate New York and a member of the YSA Youth
Council. She is co-founder of StLouisVolunteen.com, a youth-led volunteer, intern and scholarship resource for students, families, schools, and nonprofits. StLouisVolunteen.com organizes and hosts an annual spring STL Youth & Family Volunteer Fair.
As military dependents, my brother and I appreciated the generosity of our community when my dad was deployed. Friends, neighbors and the kindness of strangers helped us get us through the long and challenging months of my dad’s deployment. My brother and I wanted to pay it forward and find ways as youth that we could give back to support our community. We were both active in scouting and our religious school service projects, but we wanted to do more. Unfortunately, many nonprofit agencies required volunteers to be 18 years or older to volunteer on site.
As we got older, through word of mouth, we learned of opportunities for youth to volunteer on site at a variety of nonprofit organizations in our community: at the local library, the VA Hospital, our city’s children’s museum, and an emergency crisis nursery. However, there was no local website or resource specifically geared towards youth and family volunteerism listing these opportunities. My brother and I created StLouisVolunteen.com to fulfill that basic need. We created a simple resource for area schools and youth to promote volunteer opportunities. We categorized the various organizations that offer volunteer opportunities for students by age group and area of interest. Each spring we host a community-wide Youth and Family Volunteer Fair to share the variety of opportunities available for teenagers and families with young children to volunteer in our community. The Volunteer Fair marks the kick-off to Global Youth Service Day(GYSD), the largest service event in the world.
I first learned about GYSD when I was researching youth service ideas and opportunities on the Internet. I knew I wanted to be part of this global celebration that unites and connects youth throughout the world with the common goal of making a difference to improve their communities. GYSD provides information and grants for youth to create their own projects and/or partner with non-profit organizations. As a current member of the YSA Youth Council (watch the PSA we made!), I have the opportunity to not only increase the impact of my project from last year, but also show young people around the world that they too can use service to solve important issues in their communities. But my favorite thing about GYSD is that it shows age is not a barrier to serving! Anyone at any age can do something to make a difference.
I am asking you join me and my fellow youth council members for GYSD on April 20 -22, 2012 and either plan or join a service project. No project is too small and every single thing you do has potential to make a tremendous impact.
This video originally appeared on the .
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Today’s post comes from Jie, Marcomm Manager with 
Volunteers helped to teach and train the students at Shanghai Migrant School by giving them the opportunity to grow in character and develop important sports skills. Elyn, the project coordinator, was very thankful for all their help. She said, “Volunteers always help us to improve the quality of the children’s education. Without them, we would be nothing.”
The project was a success. Although it was raining earlier that afternoon, three volunteers delivered a fun class for all twenty students. They taught the rules of the sport, they played team-building games, and finished the afternoon with a game of basketball. The enjoyable and playful atmosphere was obvious during the whole process. The close bonding between students and volunteers was simply showed through their gestures and conversations.
Today’s post comes from Francis Paulino at 
While one student stood up front writing words on the board, the others helped out the Sunshine Home residents with their pronunciation. The student up front would write and say “boat, b-o-a-t, boat!” and the residents would cheerfully repeat their newly learned word in English.
One of the residents even sang a song in English! And out of all songs he could have known I was surprised with his choice when I heard the words to John Denver’s “Country Roads”! Some of the volunteers from Shanghai Institute of Foreign Trade also shared their beautiful voices by singing tunes by Michael Jackson that everybody knew. Overall, the atmosphere was one of celebration and everyone had a great time!
For the last thing on the list, the volunteers planned for everyone to play the game called the “Human Knot”. By then everyone felt comfortable enough to holds hands and tie each other in a knot by going in between people without letting go of your neighbor’s hands. After getting twisted into a knot, everyone had to work together as team to untangle themselves, which was received with cheers, claps and a feeling of accomplishment when the task of getting untangled was finally accomplished.
On Saturday April 16th we celebrated 
Other young volunteers spent the entire afternoon helping one of our regular volunteers, who is a professional chef (kind of like chef Ramsey), prepare a gourmet dinner for clients at A77 – a well known organization caring for AIDS patients. There was nice interaction between the clients (who came to the kitchen out of curiosity, for a chat, to say thank you or simply to ask what we were preparing for dinner) and our young volunteers. Everything felt natural. As I observed the kids, I thought “Could adults have done this any better?” The answer was no.
Similarly, I was struck by the warmth that teens demonstrated to the homeless people for which we organized a bingo plus snacks afternoon. When I asked our teen volunteers what they thought of the experience they said they had never fully realized that some people really have close to nothing and that you can make them very happy with a small gift and a smile. 
Another group painted a 20 meter mural together with the clients of our partner (a day care for disabled people). When I say together, I mean together: they all mixed up and had lots of fun. Sometime barriers are more in our minds than anyplace else.
A group helped il Volo (whose clients are young people with borderline personality disorder) decorate a restaurant where they were hosting a big fundraising event the same night: hundreds of colored balloons were blown and placed everywhere to cheer up the generous donors (and make them even more generous).
Other groups did gardening for our partner 
Today’s post comes from Lezlee McDaniel, Community Engagment Manager with 
All of this hard work and dedication is an inspiration to our office. From their own hearts, five amazing projects will benefit people all over the city of Jacksonville. This is truly an inspiring day of events for youth service and HandsOn Jacksonville.
Children for Children, Kids Care Clubs, HandsOn Schools, and our HandsOn Action Center-driven youth programs – all under one banner. We are scaling the success of the HandsOn model and putting youth at the center of change through service. We saw the impact of this next generation throughout the country last weekend.
They used exercise in their dance routines and taught lessons about a proper diet to their peers through performance.
