Become a Writer Today

Essays About Community Service: Top 5 Examples Plus Prompts

If you are looking for your next writing topic, discover top examples of essays about community service and helpful writing prompts in our guide.

Community service refers to an individual or a group’s volunteer work dedicated to improving the community and its people. In America, Benjamin Franklin introduced community service in the 18th century by developing the idea of ​​the first volunteer firehouse in Philadelphia . Since then, stepping up has become a norm, with more people encouraged to participate.

Volunteering helps individuals gain experience, improve self-esteem, expand knowledge, and promote healthy goals. In addition, choosing community service as a topic in your essay allows you to explain its significance to entice your readers to get involved. To give you an idea of ​​how to write essays about community service, here are five examples that will help you.

5 Top Examples On Essays About Community Service

1. essay on community service and its importance by joni kim, 2. community service experience: essay on what i learned by anonymous on gradesfixer.com, 3. why is community service important by perry mullins, 4. concept of the community services in modern society essay by anonymous on ivypanda.com, 5. community service experience essay by writer molly, 1. community service vs. volunteering, 2. community service: then and now, 3. why we should volunteer, 4. community service in schools: mandatory or voluntary, 5. community service and its influences, 6. types of community service, 7. my community service experience, 8. donation or service: what’s better to give.

“The service helps the group of people in need, for example, senior citizens, children, people with disability and the likes. Sometimes community service is geared towards solving problems related to the needs of community members, especially low-income earners.”

Kim explains that community service is a voluntary action done through various means. It includes health and child care services, education, housing, and other improvements to aid and support the community members who need the most assistance. Then, Kim focuses on its importance to individuals, the community, and the country. The essay showcases how community service improves social, interpersonal, and decision-making skills. It also allows students to explore and find their interests. Ultimately, Kim believes that the real-life experience of volunteering assists in determining one’s career path, providing advantages when applying for a job.

“This experience has helped me to cherish my ability to influence and impact others in a positive way, and it helped me to look at community service as a benefit for myself, instead of just another obligation to fit into my schedule.”

In this essay, the writer reflects on their community service experience, sharing the gains they reaped from the program. They discuss how their undying love for animals and tight-knit communities made them realize the gravity of sharing. They also had the opportunity to strengthen and develop a new set of talents and skills from the encounter. However, the author also mentions that when the desire to do good morphs into a forced responsibility, it leads to failure. The writer says they often receive more benefits than the people and animals they help, as the experience makes them more patient, flexible, and responsible.

“True volunteering lies in an individual’s will and drives to help other and enforcing it eliminates that drive.”

Mullins focuses his essay on explaining why it should not be mandatory for students to do community service. For him, mandatory volunteering takes away the true meaning of volunteerism. Students only view it as additional work – an obligatory criterion they must check off their list to graduate. He claims that students will gain nothing but stress instead of new skills and knowledge when compulsory community services are in place.

“As for me, I consider community work as a good opportunity to get the main idea of some particular services, still, I would not have the same great desire to participate in social life if the services would become obligatory for graduation.”

In modern society, volunteering is becoming a necessary factor in many organizations. People with experience in community service have more opportunities to get a job. The author delves into community service’s importance but also criticizes that making it a requisite takes away its value. With various arguments from professionals like Alina Tugend , the essay further argues that no one would want to receive help from people who consider it an obligation.

“The community service project is different from other school educations the community service can teach us how to love others and how to fulfill our heart with joy.”

Molly dislikes homeless people because of their appearance and smell, but this all changes when cleaning and selling preloved items to homeless people becomes the best experience of her life. Community service taught her that the homeless are no different from her. She also learned to be thankful for her situation. She concludes that after the program, she became more respectful, responsible, and caring to other people.

Do you want to secure that A+ Grade? Check out our round-up of the best essay writing apps for students and academics.

8 Helpful Prompts on Essays About Community Service

If you’re still confused about the topic and can’t choose what to talk about, you can use the prompts below:

To write this prompt, the first part of your essay should discuss the meaning of community service and volunteering. Next, identify and examine the different characteristics of a community service worker and volunteer to clearly explain their similarities and differences. Then finish your essay with your opinion on the matter or look for more information you can expound on in your own words. 

This prompt shows how people’s definitions, processes, and perceptions of community service changed over time. Research and write down how community service started in your country or area to make it more relatable. Include examples of community services that made a big difference for the community and consider how these services impacted people’s lives.

Essays About Community Service: Why we should volunteer?

Explain to your readers what voluntary work means and why exposure to it is crucial. Next, write the advantages and disadvantages of volunteering and what they should expect if they decide to be a volunteer. Finally, share your experience to clarify your comments, suggestions, and other points.

The decision to make community service mandatory in every school is still up for debate. First, pen your opinion on this topic and whether or not you agree with compulsory community service. Then, discuss your reasons and provide examples or factual evidence to support your arguments.

Identify and scrutinize the positive and negative effects of community service. Find news articles where one type of community service impacted its volunteers, community, and people differently. Write down how the organizer dealt with different situations and if it affected the program’s outcome.

There are three kinds of community service: direct, indirect, and advocacy. First, discuss and give examples for each one. Then, explain how these services differ from programs under service-learning. For example, direct community service includes directly serving homeless people food and clothes, while in service-learning, volunteers will teach people to garden and earn income. 

Use this prompt to share your memorable experience while doing community service and what you learned from it. It doesn’t matter if it’s a short program at your school, work, or organization. The important thing is that you have experience in community service. Include your initial reaction and if it changed over time while you were doing the service.

Some choose to donate money to various organizations that perform community service. Others join the program and personally help other people. In this prompt, share your opinion on the topic and whether you consider donating as community service. To make your essay more intriguing, look for prominent personalities who consistently contribute or engage in community service versus those who only present monetary assistance. 

AI grammar checkers are powerful resources that can help you improve your writing. See our guide on how to use an AI grammar checker. For help with this topic, read our guide explaining what is persuasive writing ?

an essay on a community project

Maria Caballero is a freelance writer who has been writing since high school. She believes that to be a writer doesn't only refer to excellent syntax and semantics but also knowing how to weave words together to communicate to any reader effectively.

View all posts

How to Write the Community Essay – Guide with Examples (2023-24)

September 6, 2023

community essay examples

Students applying to college this year will inevitably confront the community essay. In fact, most students will end up responding to several community essay prompts for different schools. For this reason, you should know more than simply how to approach the community essay as a genre. Rather, you will want to learn how to decipher the nuances of each particular prompt, in order to adapt your response appropriately. In this article, we’ll show you how to do just that, through several community essay examples. These examples will also demonstrate how to avoid cliché and make the community essay authentically and convincingly your own.

Emphasis on Community

Do keep in mind that inherent in the word “community” is the idea of multiple people. The personal statement already provides you with a chance to tell the college admissions committee about yourself as an individual. The community essay, however, suggests that you depict yourself among others. You can use this opportunity to your advantage by showing off interpersonal skills, for example. Or, perhaps you wish to relate a moment that forged important relationships. This in turn will indicate what kind of connections you’ll make in the classroom with college peers and professors.

Apart from comprising numerous people, a community can appear in many shapes and sizes. It could be as small as a volleyball team, or as large as a diaspora. It could fill a town soup kitchen, or spread across five boroughs. In fact, due to the internet, certain communities today don’t even require a physical place to congregate. Communities can form around a shared identity, shared place, shared hobby, shared ideology, or shared call to action. They can even arise due to a shared yet unforeseen circumstance.

What is the Community Essay All About?             

In a nutshell, the community essay should exhibit three things:

  • An aspect of yourself, 2. in the context of a community you belonged to, and 3. how this experience may shape your contribution to the community you’ll join in college.

It may look like a fairly simple equation: 1 + 2 = 3. However, each college will word their community essay prompt differently, so it’s important to look out for additional variables. One college may use the community essay as a way to glimpse your core values. Another may use the essay to understand how you would add to diversity on campus. Some may let you decide in which direction to take it—and there are many ways to go!

To get a better idea of how the prompts differ, let’s take a look at some real community essay prompts from the current admission cycle.

Sample 2023-2024 Community Essay Prompts

1) brown university.

“Students entering Brown often find that making their home on College Hill naturally invites reflection on where they came from. Share how an aspect of your growing up has inspired or challenged you, and what unique contributions this might allow you to make to the Brown community. (200-250 words)”

A close reading of this prompt shows that Brown puts particular emphasis on place. They do this by using the words “home,” “College Hill,” and “where they came from.” Thus, Brown invites writers to think about community through the prism of place. They also emphasize the idea of personal growth or change, through the words “inspired or challenged you.” Therefore, Brown wishes to see how the place you grew up in has affected you. And, they want to know how you in turn will affect their college community.

“NYU was founded on the belief that a student’s identity should not dictate the ability for them to access higher education. That sense of opportunity for all students, of all backgrounds, remains a part of who we are today and a critical part of what makes us a world-class university. Our community embraces diversity, in all its forms, as a cornerstone of the NYU experience.

We would like to better understand how your experiences would help us to shape and grow our diverse community. Please respond in 250 words or less.”

Here, NYU places an emphasis on students’ “identity,” “backgrounds,” and “diversity,” rather than any physical place. (For some students, place may be tied up in those ideas.) Furthermore, while NYU doesn’t ask specifically how identity has changed the essay writer, they do ask about your “experience.” Take this to mean that you can still recount a specific moment, or several moments, that work to portray your particular background. You should also try to link your story with NYU’s values of inclusivity and opportunity.

3) University of Washington

“Our families and communities often define us and our individual worlds. Community might refer to your cultural group, extended family, religious group, neighborhood or school, sports team or club, co-workers, etc. Describe the world you come from and how you, as a product of it, might add to the diversity of the UW. (300 words max) Tip: Keep in mind that the UW strives to create a community of students richly diverse in cultural backgrounds, experiences, values and viewpoints.”

UW ’s community essay prompt may look the most approachable, for they help define the idea of community. You’ll notice that most of their examples (“families,” “cultural group, extended family, religious group, neighborhood”…) place an emphasis on people. This may clue you in on their desire to see the relationships you’ve made. At the same time, UW uses the words “individual” and “richly diverse.” They, like NYU, wish to see how you fit in and stand out, in order to boost campus diversity.

Writing Your First Community Essay

Begin by picking which community essay you’ll write first. (For practical reasons, you’ll probably want to go with whichever one is due earliest.) Spend time doing a close reading of the prompt, as we’ve done above. Underline key words. Try to interpret exactly what the prompt is asking through these keywords.

Next, brainstorm. I recommend doing this on a blank piece of paper with a pencil. Across the top, make a row of headings. These might be the communities you’re a part of, or the components that make up your identity. Then, jot down descriptive words underneath in each column—whatever comes to you. These words may invoke people and experiences you had with them, feelings, moments of growth, lessons learned, values developed, etc. Now, narrow in on the idea that offers the richest material and that corresponds fully with the prompt.

Lastly, write! You’ll definitely want to describe real moments, in vivid detail. This will keep your essay original, and help you avoid cliché. However, you’ll need to summarize the experience and answer the prompt succinctly, so don’t stray too far into storytelling mode.

How To Adapt Your Community Essay

Once your first essay is complete, you’ll need to adapt it to the other colleges involving community essays on your list. Again, you’ll want to turn to the prompt for a close reading, and recognize what makes this prompt different from the last. For example, let’s say you’ve written your essay for UW about belonging to your swim team, and how the sports dynamics shaped you. Adapting that essay to Brown’s prompt could involve more of a focus on place. You may ask yourself, how was my swim team in Alaska different than the swim teams we competed against in other states?

Once you’ve adapted the content, you’ll also want to adapt the wording to mimic the prompt. For example, let’s say your UW essay states, “Thinking back to my years in the pool…” As you adapt this essay to Brown’s prompt, you may notice that Brown uses the word “reflection.” Therefore, you might change this sentence to “Reflecting back on my years in the pool…” While this change is minute, it cleverly signals to the reader that you’ve paid attention to the prompt, and are giving that school your full attention.

What to Avoid When Writing the Community Essay  

  • Avoid cliché. Some students worry that their idea is cliché, or worse, that their background or identity is cliché. However, what makes an essay cliché is not the content, but the way the content is conveyed. This is where your voice and your descriptions become essential.
  • Avoid giving too many examples. Stick to one community, and one or two anecdotes arising from that community that allow you to answer the prompt fully.
  • Don’t exaggerate or twist facts. Sometimes students feel they must make themselves sound more “diverse” than they feel they are. Luckily, diversity is not a feeling. Likewise, diversity does not simply refer to one’s heritage. If the prompt is asking about your identity or background, you can show the originality of your experiences through your actions and your thinking.

Community Essay Examples and Analysis

Brown university community essay example.

I used to hate the NYC subway. I’ve taken it since I was six, going up and down Manhattan, to and from school. By high school, it was a daily nightmare. Spending so much time underground, underneath fluorescent lighting, squashed inside a rickety, rocking train car among strangers, some of whom wanted to talk about conspiracy theories, others who had bedbugs or B.O., or who manspread across two seats, or bickered—it wore me out. The challenge of going anywhere seemed absurd. I dreaded the claustrophobia and disgruntlement.

Yet the subway also inspired my understanding of community. I will never forget the morning I saw a man, several seats away, slide out of his seat and hit the floor. The thump shocked everyone to attention. What we noticed: he appeared drunk, possibly homeless. I was digesting this when a second man got up and, through a sort of awkward embrace, heaved the first man back into his seat. The rest of us had stuck to subway social codes: don’t step out of line. Yet this second man’s silent actions spoke loudly. They said, “I care.”

That day I realized I belong to a group of strangers. What holds us together is our transience, our vulnerabilities, and a willingness to assist. This community is not perfect but one in motion, a perpetual work-in-progress. Now I make it my aim to hold others up. I plan to contribute to the Brown community by helping fellow students and strangers in moments of precariousness.    

Brown University Community Essay Example Analysis

Here the student finds an original way to write about where they come from. The subway is not their home, yet it remains integral to ideas of belonging. The student shows how a community can be built between strangers, in their responsibility toward each other. The student succeeds at incorporating key words from the prompt (“challenge,” “inspired” “Brown community,” “contribute”) into their community essay.

UW Community Essay Example

I grew up in Hawaii, a world bound by water and rich in diversity. In school we learned that this sacred land was invaded, first by Captain Cook, then by missionaries, whalers, traders, plantation owners, and the U.S. government. My parents became part of this problematic takeover when they moved here in the 90s. The first community we knew was our church congregation. At the beginning of mass, we shook hands with our neighbors. We held hands again when we sang the Lord’s Prayer. I didn’t realize our church wasn’t “normal” until our diocese was informed that we had to stop dancing hula and singing Hawaiian hymns. The order came from the Pope himself.

Eventually, I lost faith in God and organized institutions. I thought the banning of hula—an ancient and pure form of expression—seemed medieval, ignorant, and unfair, given that the Hawaiian religion had already been stamped out. I felt a lack of community and a distrust for any place in which I might find one. As a postcolonial inhabitant, I could never belong to the Hawaiian culture, no matter how much I valued it. Then, I was shocked to learn that Queen Ka’ahumanu herself had eliminated the Kapu system, a strict code of conduct in which women were inferior to men. Next went the Hawaiian religion. Queen Ka’ahumanu burned all the temples before turning to Christianity, hoping this religion would offer better opportunities for her people.

Community Essay (Continued)

I’m not sure what to make of this history. Should I view Queen Ka’ahumanu as a feminist hero, or another failure in her islands’ tragedy? Nothing is black and white about her story, but she did what she thought was beneficial to her people, regardless of tradition. From her story, I’ve learned to accept complexity. I can disagree with institutionalized religion while still believing in my neighbors. I am a product of this place and their presence. At UW, I plan to add to campus diversity through my experience, knowing that diversity comes with contradictions and complications, all of which should be approached with an open and informed mind.

UW Community Essay Example Analysis

This student also manages to weave in words from the prompt (“family,” “community,” “world,” “product of it,” “add to the diversity,” etc.). Moreover, the student picks one of the examples of community mentioned in the prompt, (namely, a religious group,) and deepens their answer by addressing the complexity inherent in the community they’ve been involved in. While the student displays an inner turmoil about their identity and participation, they find a way to show how they’d contribute to an open-minded campus through their values and intellectual rigor.

What’s Next

For more on supplemental essays and essay writing guides, check out the following articles:

  • How to Write the Why This Major Essay + Example
  • How to Write the Overcoming Challenges Essay + Example
  • How to Start a College Essay – 12 Techniques and Tips
  • College Essay

' src=

Kaylen Baker

With a BA in Literary Studies from Middlebury College, an MFA in Fiction from Columbia University, and a Master’s in Translation from Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis, Kaylen has been working with students on their writing for over five years. Previously, Kaylen taught a fiction course for high school students as part of Columbia Artists/Teachers, and served as an English Language Assistant for the French National Department of Education. Kaylen is an experienced writer/translator whose work has been featured in Los Angeles Review, Hybrid, San Francisco Bay Guardian, France Today, and Honolulu Weekly, among others.

  • 2-Year Colleges
  • Application Strategies
  • Big Picture
  • Career & Personality Assessment
  • College Search/Knowledge
  • College Success
  • Costs & Financial Aid
  • Extracurricular Activities
  • Graduate School Admissions
  • High School Success
  • High Schools
  • Law School Admissions
  • Medical School Admissions
  • Navigating the Admissions Process
  • Online Learning
  • Private High School Spotlight
  • Summer Program Spotlight
  • Summer Programs
  • Test Prep Provider Spotlight

College Transitions Sidebar Block Image

“Innovative and invaluable…use this book as your college lifeline.”

— Lynn O'Shaughnessy

Nationally Recognized College Expert

College Planning in Your Inbox

Join our information-packed monthly newsletter.

Sign Up Now

Think you can get into a top-10 school? Take our chance-me calculator... if you dare. 🔥

Last updated April 21, 2023

Every piece we write is researched and vetted by a former admissions officer. Read about our mission to pull back the admissions curtain.

Blog > Essay Advice , Supplementals > How to Write a Community Supplemental Essay (with Examples)

How to Write a Community Supplemental Essay (with Examples)

Admissions officer reviewed by Ben Bousquet, M.Ed Former Vanderbilt University

Written by Kylie Kistner, MA Former Willamette University Admissions

Key Takeaway

If you're applying to college, there's a good chance you'll be writing a Community Essay for one (or lots) of your supplementals. In this post, we show you how to write one that stands out.

This post is one in a series of posts about the supplemental essays . You can read our core “how-to” supplemental post here .

When schools admit you, they aren’t just admitting you to be a student. They’re also admitting you to be a community member.

Community supplemental essays help universities understand how you would fit into their school community. At their core, Community prompts allow you to explicitly show an admissions officer why you would be the perfect addition to the school’s community.

Let’s get into what a Community supplemental essay is, what strategies you can use to stand out, and which steps you can take to write the best one possible.

What is a Community supplemental essay?

Community supplemental essay prompts come in a number of forms. Some ask you to talk about a community you already belong to, while others ask you to expand on how you would contribute to the school you’re applying to.

Let’s look at a couple of examples.

1: Rice University

Rice is lauded for creating a collaborative atmosphere that enhances the quality of life for all members of our campus community. The Residential College System and undergraduate life is heavily influenced by the unique life experiences and cultural tradition each student brings. What life perspectives would you contribute to the Rice community? 500 word limit.

2: Swarthmore College

Swarthmore students’ worldviews are often forged by their prior experiences and exposure to ideas and values. Our students are often mentored, supported, and developed by their immediate context—in their neighborhoods, communities of faith, families, and classrooms. Reflect on what elements of your home, school, or community have shaped you or positively impacted you. How have you grown or changed because of the influence of your community?

Community Essay Strategy

Your Community essay strategy will likely depend on the kind of Community essay you’re asked to write. As with all supplemental essays, the goal of any community essay should be to write about the strengths that make you a good fit for the school in question.

How to write about a community to which you belong

Most Community essay prompts give you a lot of flexibility in how you define “community.” That means that the community you write about probably isn’t limited to the more formal communities you’re part of like family or school. Your communities can also include friend groups, athletic teams, clubs and organizations, online communities, and more.

There are two things you should consider before you even begin writing your essay.

What school values is the prompt looking for?

Whether they’re listed implicitly or explicitly, Community essay prompts often include values that you can align your essay response with.

To explain, let’s look at this short supplemental prompt from the University of Notre Dame:

If you were given unlimited resources to help solve one problem in your community, what would it be and how would you accomplish it?

Now, this prompt doesn’t outright say anything about values. But the question itself, even being so short, implies a few values:

a) That you should be active in your community

b) That you should be aware of your community’s problems

c) That you know how to problem-solve

d) That you’re able to collaborate with your community

After dissecting the prompt for these values, you can write a Community essay that showcases how you align with them.

What else are admissions officers learning about you through the community you choose?

In addition to showing what a good community member you are, your Community supplemental essays can also let you talk about other parts of your experience. Doing so can help you find the perfect narrative balance among all your essays.

Let’s use a quick example.

If I’m a student applying to computer science programs, then I might choose to write about the community I’ve found in my robotics team. More specifically, I might write about my role as cheerleader and principle problem-solver of my robotics team. Writing about my robotics team allows me to do two things:

Show that I’m a really supportive person in my community, and

Show that I’m on a robotics team that means a lot to me.

Now, it’s important not to co-opt your Community essay and turn it into a secret Extracurricular essay , but it’s important to be thinking about all the information an admissions officer will learn about you based on the community you choose to focus on.

How to write about what you’ll contribute to your new community

The other segment of Community essays are those that ask you to reflect on how your specific experiences will contribute to your new community.

It’s important that you read each prompt carefully so you know what to focus your essay on.

These kinds of Community prompts let you explicitly drive home why you belong at the school you’re applying to.

Here are two suggestions to get you started.

Draw out the values.

This kind of Community prompt also typically contains some kind of reference to values. The Rice prompt is a perfect example of this:

Rice is lauded for creating a collaborative atmosphere that enhances the quality of life for all members of our campus community . The Residential College System and undergraduate life is heavily influenced by the unique life experiences and cultural tradition each student brings. What life perspectives would you contribute to the Rice community? 500 word limit.

There are several values here:

a) Collaboration

b) Enhancing quality of life

c) For all members of the community

d) Residential system (AKA not just in the classroom)

e) Sharing unique life experiences and cultural traditions with other students

Note that the actual question of the prompt is “What life perspectives would you contribute to the Rice community?” If you skimmed the beginning of the prompt to get to the question, you’d miss all these juicy details about what a Rice student looks like.

But with them in mind, you can choose to write about a life perspective that you hold that aligns with these five values.

Find detailed connections to the school.

Since these kinds of Community prompts ask you what you would contribute to the school community, this is your chance to find the most logical and specific connections you can. Browse the school website and social media to find groups, clubs, activities, communities, or support systems that are related to your personal background and experiences. When appropriate based on the prompt, these kinds of connections can help you show how good a fit you are for the school and community.

How to do Community Essay school research

Looking at school values means doing research on the school’s motto, mission statement, and strategic plans. This information is all carefully curated by a university to reflect the core values, initiatives, and goals of an institution. They can guide your Community essay by giving you more values options to include.

We’ll use the Rice mission statement as an example. It says,

As a leading research university with a distinctive commitment to undergraduate education, Rice University aspires to pathbreaking research , unsurpassed teaching , and contribution to the betterment of our world . It seeks to fulfill this mission by cultivating a diverse community of learning and discovery that produces leaders across the spectrum of human endeavor.

I’ve bolded just a few of the most important values we can draw out.

As we’ll see in the next section, I can use these values to brainstorm my Community essay.

How to write a Community Supplemental Essay

Step 1: Read the prompt closely & identify any relevant values.

When writing any supplemental essay, your first step should always be to closely read the prompt. You can even annotate it. It’s important to do this so you know exactly what is being asked of you.

With Community essays specifically, you can also highlight any values you think the prompt is asking you to elaborate on.

Keeping track of the prompt will make sure that you’re not missing anything an admissions officer will be on the lookout for.

Step 2: Brainstorm communities you’re involved in.

If you’re writing a Community essay that asks you to discuss a community you belong to, then your next step will be brainstorming all of your options.

As you brainstorm, keep a running list. Your list can include all kinds of communities you’re involved in.

Communities:

  • Model United Nations
  • Youth group
  • Instagram book club
  • My Discord group

Step 3: Think about the role(s) you play in your selected community.

Narrow down your community list to a couple of options. For each remaining option, identify the roles you played, actions you took, and significance you’ve drawn from being part of that group.

Community: Orchestra

These three columns help you get at the most important details you need to include in your community essay.

Step 4: Identify any relevant connections to the school.

Depending on the question the prompt asks of you, your last step may be to do some school research.

Let’s return to the Rice example.

After researching the Rice mission statement, we know that Rice values community members who want to contribute to the “betterment of our world.”

Ah ha! Now we have something solid to work from.

With this value in mind, I can choose to write about a perspective that shows my investment in creating a better world. Maybe that perspective is a specific kind of fundraising tenacity. Maybe it’s always looking for those small improvements that have a big impact. Maybe it’s some combination of both. Whatever it is, I can write a supplemental essay that reflects the values of the university.

Community Essay Mistakes

While writing Community essays may seem fairly straightforward, there are actually a number of ways they can go awry. Specifically, there are three common mistakes students make that you should be on the lookout for.

They don’t address the specific requests of the prompt.

As with all supplemental essays, your Community essay needs to address what the prompt is asking you to do. In Community essays especially, you’ll need to assess whether you’re being asked to talk about a community you’re already part of or the community you hope to join.

Neglecting to read the prompt also means neglecting any help the prompt gives you in terms of values. Remember that you can get clues as to what the school is looking for by analyzing the prompt’s underlying values.

They’re too vague.

Community essays can also go awry when they’re too vague. Your Community essay should reflect on specific, concrete details about your experience. This is especially the case when a Community prompt asks you to talk about a specific moment, challenge, or sequence of events.

Don’t shy away from details. Instead, use them to tell a compelling story.

They don’t make any connections to the school.

Finally, Community essays that don’t make any connections to the school in question miss out on a valuable opportunity to show school fit. Recall from our supplemental essay guide that you should always write supplemental essays with an eye toward showing how well you fit into a particular community.

Community essays are the perfect chance to do that, so try to find relevant and logical school connections to include.

Community Supplemental Essay Example

Example essay: robotics community.

University of Michigan: Everyone belongs to many different communities and/or groups defined by (among other things) shared geography, religion, ethnicity, income, cuisine, interest, race, ideology, or intellectual heritage. Choose one of the communities to which you belong, and describe that community and your place within it. (Required for all applicants; minimum 100 words/maximum 300 words)

From Blendtec’s “Will it Blend?” videos to ZirconTV’s “How to Use a Stud Finder,” I’m a YouTube how-to fiend. This propensity for fix-it knowledge has not only served me well, but it’s also been a lifesaver for my favorite community: my robotics team(( The writer explicitly states the community they’ll be focusing on.)) . While some students spend their after-school hours playing sports or video games, I spend mine tinkering in my garage with three friends, one of whom is made of metal.

Last year, I Googled more fixes than I can count. Faulty wires, misaligned soldering, and failed code were no match for me. My friends watched in awe as I used Boolean Operators to find exactly the information I sought.(( The writer clearly articulates their place in the community.)) But as I agonized over chassis reviews, other unsearchable problems arose.

First((This entire paragraph fulfills the “describe that community” direction in the prompt.)) , there was the matter of registering for our first robotics competition. None of us familiar with bureaucracy, David stepped up and made some calls. His maturity and social skills helped us immediately land a spot. The next issue was branding. Our robot needed a name and a logo, and Connor took it upon himself to learn graphic design. We all voted on Archie’s name and logo design to find the perfect match. And finally, someone needed to enter the ring. Archie took it from there, winning us first place.

The best part about being in this robotics community is the collaboration and exchange of knowledge.((The writer emphasizes a clear strength: collaboration within their community. It’s clear that the writer values all contributions to the team.))  Although I can figure out how to fix anything, it’s impossible to google social skills, creativity, or courage. For that information, only friends will do. I can only imagine the fixes I’ll bring to the University of Michigan and the skills I’ll learn in return at part of the Manufacturing Robotics community((The writer ends with a forward-looking connection to the school in question.)) .

Want to see even more supplemental essay examples? Check out our college essay examples post . 

Liked that? Try this next.

post preview thumbnail

How to Write Supplemental Essays that Will Impress Admissions Officers

post preview thumbnail

How to Write a College Essay (Exercises + Examples)

post preview thumbnail

Extracurricular Magnitude and Impact

"the only actually useful chance calculator i’ve seen—plus a crash course on the application review process.".

Irena Smith, Former Stanford Admissions Officer

We built the best admissions chancer in the world . How is it the best? It draws from our experience in top-10 admissions offices to show you how selective admissions actually works.

57 Community Service Essay Topics and Examples

🏆 best titles about community service, 👍 simple & easy research titles about community, 🎓 most interesting community topics to write about.

  • Community Service: Mandatory or Voluntary? Engaging in community service not only helps in transforming the behavior of young people but it is also helpful to adults.
  • Community service should be required by most citizens of a country One of the reasons is because President Clinton has been explaining the importance of volunteering to the community by the American students and the public. We will write a custom essay specifically for you by our professional experts 808 writers online Learn More
  • Concept of the Community Services in Modern Society Community services are defined as the services which are performed for the benefit of the society on volunteering basis. The advantages of the community services cannot be questioned, still, making such service mandatory for graduation […]
  • Conceptualization of the Aspect of Community Service As part of expressive the Jewish values, the aspect of creativity and innovativeness help to inspire the inner self to remain observant, responsible, and caring to the needs of neighbors and the society at large.
  • Volunteering for Horizon House: Homeless Neighbours’ Motivation to Find Jobs To understand and analyze the role of the center in changing the homeless neighbours’ life for better, it is appropriate to focus on the center’s assistance in employing neighbours and developing their job skills with […]
  • Volunteering in Leisure Sector The review shows that individuals are motivated due to the benefits that come with volunteering in the sector and the nature of the activity.
  • Hampton-Newport News Community Services Board The Hampton-Newport Community Services Board offers a broad range of mental well-being and drug abuse services and care for people with mental and developmental disorders. The agency works together with certified psychoanalysts and psychologists in […]
  • Illuminate Diabetes Event Design Finally, after these special performances, there will be distribution of fliers with information on diabetes and encouragement to get tested for diabetes and thus reach the climax of the event.
  • Addressing the Impacts of Undergraduates’ Engagement in Community Service on Stakeholders It is important to note that as much as the community and the individual stands to benefit from community service, there are various challenges facing the provision of this service in a given community.
  • Significant Voluntary Sector Organisations Challenges in Public Service Delivery The main concern raised in the conference was a discussion of the role of voluntary organisations in the delivery of public services.
  • Mondawmin Community Service Delivery Plan Through the service delivery plan, the relevant authorities in the region will put in place the relevant measures for reducing or eliminating the above predicament in the region.
  • Dayton Children’s Hospital and Community Service Dayton Children’s is committed to improve quality of life of people living in the community. This report provides more detailed information on the organization’s activities and monetary amounts of community benefit.
  • Community Service as a Form of Correction Of these alternatives, community service has been one of the most employed and therefore opened a room for debates with the proponents feeling that the option is a remedy to all the prison problems while […]
  • Most Satisfying Experience Related to Community Service I will serve as a role model for other people and they, following my example, will also get committed to the temple.
  • Community Service Experience: Homeless Shelter The shelter also organizes outreach and humanitarian work during the day to ensure that homeless people in the community know about the shelter and the services it provides.
  • S.H.A.P.E. Community Service and Programs The organization emphasizes unity, self-determination, creativity, faith, and teamwork as the basis of its work.S.H.A.P.E.programs target young and elderly generations and aim to improve the quality of life of particular age category individuals and the […]
  • The Achievements of Peaceful Protest During the Civil Rights Movement
  • The War On Drugs And The Civil Rights Movement
  • The Long Term Effects of the Civil Rights Movement
  • African Americans And Religion During The Civil Rights Movement
  • The History of the Civil Rights Movement in the United Stats and Its Impact on African Americans
  • Analyzing the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War
  • The Impact Of Rock ‘n’ Roll On The Civil Rights Movement
  • The Importance and Impact of the Civil Rights Movement to the Public Policy
  • Women in the Civil Rights Movement
  • A History of the Civil Rights Movement and Feminist Movement in the United States
  • To What Extent Can the 1950’s Be Viewed as a Great Success for the Civil Rights Movement
  • The Historical Accuracy of the Portrayal of the Civil Rights Movement in Selma, a Drama Film by Ava DuVernay
  • A Look at Civil Rights Movement in the United States and the Role of Martin Luther
  • The Historiography Of Womens Role And Visibility In The Civil Rights Movement
  • The Relationship of Southern Jews to Blacks and the Civil Rights Movement
  • The Contradicting Outcome of the Civil Rights Movement in America
  • The Montgomery Bus Boycott And The Civil Rights Movement
  • The Role Of Police During The Civil Rights Movement
  • The Role Of The Supreme Court In The Civil Rights Movement
  • The True Face of The Civil Rights Movement
  • The Stages of the Progressive Reform in the Civil Rights Movement
  • U.S. Democracy and the Civil Rights Movement
  • Theatre in the Era of the Civil Rights Movement
  • The Importance of Students During The Civil Rights Movement
  • The Relationship between Activism and Federal Government during the Civil Rights Movement
  • Violent and Non-violent Methods of Protests Embraced by African American in the Civil Rights Movement
  • The Role and Importance of the Grassroot Organizers on the Civil Rights Movement
  • The Fight For Aid From The Civil Rights Movement
  • The Success of The Civil Rights Movement in the 1950’s
  • The Laws in the Reconstruction Era and the Civil Rights Movement
  • The New York Times And The Civil Rights Movement
  • White Resistance to the Civil Rights Movement
  • The Role of Black Women in the Civil Rights Movement
  • Understanding the Civil Rights Movement: America vs. Australia
  • Successes And Failures Of Civil Rights Movement
  • The Civil Rights Movement & the Black Middle Class
  • The Foundation of the Niagara Movement and Its Influence on the Civil Rights Movement in America
  • To What Extent Was Grass Roots Activism a Significant Reason to Why the Civil Rights Movement Grew in the 1950s and 1960s
  • The History of the Civil Rights Movement, National Association of the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
  • The Value of Studying the Civil Rights Movement
  • The Effect of Society on the World of Doubt and the Effects of the Civil Rights Movement
  • Chicago (A-D)
  • Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2023, November 30). 57 Community Service Essay Topics and Examples. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/community-service-essay-examples/

"57 Community Service Essay Topics and Examples." IvyPanda , 30 Nov. 2023, ivypanda.com/essays/topic/community-service-essay-examples/.

IvyPanda . (2023) '57 Community Service Essay Topics and Examples'. 30 November.

IvyPanda . 2023. "57 Community Service Essay Topics and Examples." November 30, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/community-service-essay-examples/.

1. IvyPanda . "57 Community Service Essay Topics and Examples." November 30, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/community-service-essay-examples/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "57 Community Service Essay Topics and Examples." November 30, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/community-service-essay-examples/.

  • Public Safety Research Ideas
  • Ethical Dilemma Titles
  • Public Relations Titles
  • Activist Essay Titles
  • Charity Ideas
  • Public Service Research Topics
  • Philanthropy Paper Topics
  • Environmentalism Essay Topics
  • Volunteerism Paper Topics
  • Altruism Ideas
  • Red Cross Titles
  • Conscience Questions
  • Existentialism Paper Topics
  • Wellness Essay Topics
  • Social Justice Essay Ideas

How to write the community service essay

Whether in an interview or an essay, all college applicants should be prepared to talk about the ways they have worked to improve their schools and communities. No college wants to admit a passive recipient of community, they would all much prefer to admit an active and engaged citizen who understands that community requires contribution. Use this essay to define a community (see the community essay for more examples of this) and then talk specifically about how you helped to make that community better. You have a lot of latitude here to define your terms and to define the boundaries of your engagement. Don’t pass up any opportunity to share your active citizenship. These essays will vary in length but are often a “mid-size” supplement of 250-350 words.

Example Community Service Questions:

  • U of California: What have you done to make your school or community a better place?
  • MIT: At MIT, we bring people together to better the lives of others. MIT students work to improve their communities in different ways, from tackling the world’s biggest challenges to being a good friend. Describe one way in which you have contributed to your community, whether in your family, the classroom, your neighborhood, etc.  
  • Princeton: Princeton has a longstanding commitment to service and civic engagement. Tell us how your story intersects (or will intersect) with these ideals.

LET'S BREAK DOWN THE ESSENTIAL POINTS YOU NEED TO HIT WHEN RESPONDING TO THIS SUPPLEMENT:

This is an important question! If you have an option to select an essay question among several prompts, choose to write this essay! Why? Colleges want to know that you have made your community a better place. This makes you a compelling applicant. Why else? Because you have done something that can answer this question – even if to you, right now, it looks small in comparison to solving global challenges.

“Community” can be defined however you choose! Be sure to use a few words of this essay to outline the boundaries of the community you identify.

THINGS TO AVOID:

Additional tips and tricks:.

  • Column 1: Identify the problem. Describe the challenge you were (or are currently) facing. The problem could be something global, like an environmental issue, or something more local, like a lack of creative opportunities in your high school.
  • Column 2: Raise the stakes. Help us understand: Why was (or is) overcoming this challenge important? What might happen if this problem went (or goes) unchecked?  
  • Column 3: Articulate the vision. What might the world look like if this problem were solved? Inspire us to dream with you.
  • Column 4: Describe what you did. Tell us the specific things you (or you and your team) did to solve the problem.
  • Column 5: Clarify your role.   Describe your particular involvement. Why were (or are) you crucial to the project’s or club’s success?
  • Column 6: Share the impact you had, lessons you learned, or values you gained. Provide specific evidence that gives us a sense that your work mattered.

Don't forget to use active verbs! Additionally, you can absolutely re-use this essay (being mindful of word count) to respond to multiple community service prompts from different schools.

an essay on a community project

Elise holds a BA in Political Philosophy from Williams College and an MEd in Administration & Social Policy from Harvard. She has spent the past twenty years working in top-tier independent schools.

Related Content

| Operation Warm, 50 Applied Bank Boulevard, Glen Mills, PA 19342  |

10 Examples of Great Community Service Projects

Planning a great community service project doesn’t have to be a ton of work. There are plenty of ways you can improve your community with groups big and small. Here are ten ways!

1. Collect Food

Contact your local food bank and they will provide you with the necessary information and materials to have a food drive. For example, the Food Bank of Delaware provides a food drive organization kit, most wanted food list, and more. Encourage people to donate their favorite food items. You can even offer prizes to individuals who donate the most!

2. Recycling Program

Starting a recycling program is a big task but a worthwhile one. Here’s a great guide to get you started. When you recycle, those items can be turned into amazing things, like the Green Guardian™ coat , made from recycled PET plastic bottles.

3. Community Garden

A community garden is a great way to bond with your community and provide healthy food. You may be able to identify a sponsor to help get your garden started. Consider making a garden just for children, so they can learn about the process of gardening. It is a great educational opportunity.

A community cleanup will improve the look of your neighborhood or park and inspire people to keep the space looking great. Hosting a potluck after is a wonderful way to celebrate this community achievement!

5. Blood drive

Every two seconds, someone in the U.S. needs blood. By hosting a blood drive, you and your community can make a real difference. The American Red Cross provides planning assistance, recruitment tools, equipment, supplies, and a trained staff to screen and collect donations safely.

6. Neighborhood Watch Group

Starting or joining a neighborhood watch group is easy. Once you recruit as many neighbors as possible you can contact your local law enforcement agency to schedule a meeting to get additional information. Holding regular meetings and events is another way to bring your community together.

7. Give New Coats to Kids in Need

Starting an Operation Warm coat program for your local low-income school is a great way to serve your community. You select the school, set your fundraising goal, and hand out the brand new coats yourselves. This is a wonderful way to strengthen your community ties while helping local children stay warm. Operation Warm offers a Partner Portal , a one-stop website built just for Operation Warm community partners. It gives you access to everything you need to run a successful coat program.

If you're looking to volunteer for Operation Warm rather than start your own program, we also offer individual volunteer opportunities!

8. Community Newsletter

Organizing a community newsletter is a fun way to get the word out and get people involved in activities in your neighborhood and community. Here is a great comprehensive guide to get you started.

9. Volunteer

Volunteering is a rewarding experience that brings people of all ages together for a good cause. Get involved with a great organization like Habitat for Humanity or Operation Warm .

Are you into sports? Do you spend most of your free time on the field or watching your favorite team? Become a volunteer coach or referee with a local youth team. Your town recreation department, Boys and Girls Club or Y is probably looking for volunteers, and they should be so lucky to have someone with your expertise!

Interested in providing brand new coats for kids in your community? We would love for you to join us as an Operation Warm Community Partner!

  • Mountain America
  • Marathon Petroleum

Privacy Policy

  • What Information Do We Collect? When you visit our website you may provide us with two types of information: personal information you knowingly choose to disclose that is collected on an individual basis and website use information collected as you and others browse our website.
  • Personal Information You Choose to Provide We may request that you voluntarily supply us with personal information, including your email address, postal address, home or work telephone number and other personal information for such purposes as correspondence, placing an order, participating in a program, requesting an estimate, or participating in online surveys. If you choose to correspond with us through email, we may retain the content of your email messages together with your email address and our responses. We provide the same protections for these electronic communications that we employ in the maintenance of information received by mail and telephone.
  • Website Use Information Similar to other websites, our site may utilize a standard technology called "cookies" (see explanation below, "What Are Cookies?") and web server logs to collect information about how our website is used. Information gathered through cookies and server logs may include the date and time of visits, the pages viewed, time spent at our website, and the sites visited just before and just after ours.
  • How Do We Use the Information That You Provide to Us? Broadly speaking, we use personal information for purposes of administering our business activities, providing service and support and making available other products and services to our customers and prospective customers. We may also use the information we collect to notify you about important changes to our website, new services and special offers we think you will find valuable. The lists used to send you product and service offers are developed and managed under our traditional standards designed to safeguard the security and privacy of all personal information provided by our users. You may at any time to notify us of your desire not to receive these offers.
  • What Are Cookies? Cookies are a feature of web browser software that allows web servers to recognize the computer used to access a website. Cookies are small pieces of data that are stored by a user's web browser on the user's hard drive. Cookies can remember what information a user accesses on one web page to simplify subsequent interactions with that website by the same user or to use the information to streamline the user's transactions on related web pages. This makes it easier for a user to move from web page to web page and to complete commercial transactions over the Internet. Cookies should make your online experience easier and more personalized. To change your preferences at any time, you can clear all cookies in your browser.
  • How Do We Use Information Collected From Cookies? We use website browser software tools such as cookies and web server logs to gather information about our website users' browsing activities, in order to constantly improve our website and better serve our users. This information assists us to design and arrange our web pages in the most user-friendly manner and to continually improve our website to better meet the needs of our users and prospective users. Cookies help us collect important business and technical statistics. The information in the cookies lets us trace the paths followed by users to our website as they move from one page to another. Web server logs allow us to count how many people visit our website and evaluate our website's visitor capacity. We do not use these technologies to capture your individual email address or any personally identifying information about you.
  • Notice of New Services and Changes Occasionally, we may use the information we collect to notify you about important changes to our website, new services and special offers we think you will find valuable. As a user of our website, you will be given the opportunity to notify us of your desire not to receive these offers by clicking on a response box when you receive such an offer or by sending us an email request.
  • How Do We Secure Information Transmissions? When you send confidential personal information to us on our website, a secure server software which we have licensed encrypts all information you input before it is sent to us. The information is scrambled en route and decoded once it reaches our website. Other email that you may send to us may not be secure unless we advise you that security measures will be in place prior to your transmitting the information. For that reason, we ask that you do not send confidential information such as Social Security, credit card, or account numbers to us through an unsecured email.
  • How Do We Protect Your Information? Information Security -- We utilize encryption/security software to safeguard the confidentiality of personal information we collect from unauthorized access or disclosure and accidental loss, alteration or destruction. Evaluation of Information Protection Practices -- Periodically, our operations and business practices are reviewed for compliance with organization policies and procedures governing the security, confidentiality and quality of our information. Employee Access, Training and Expectations -- Our organization values, ethical standards, policies and practices are committed to the protection of user information. In general, our business practices limit employee access to confidential information, and limit the use and disclosure of such information to authorized persons, processes and transactions.
  • How Can You Access and Correct Your Information? You may request access to all your personally identifiable information that we collect online and maintain in our database by emailing us using the contact form provided to you within the site structure of our website.
  • Do We Disclose Information to Outside Parties? We may provide aggregate information about our customers, sales, website traffic patterns and related website information to our affiliates or reputable third parties, but this information will not include personally identifying data, except as otherwise provided in this privacy policy.
  • What About Legally Compelled Disclosure of Information? We may disclose information when legally compelled to do so, in other words, when we, in good faith, believe that the law requires it or for the protection of our legal rights.
  • Permission to Use of Materials The right to download and store or output the materials in our website is granted for the user's personal use only, and materials may not be reproduced in any edited form. Any other reproduction, transmission, performance, display or editing of these materials by any means mechanical or electronic without our express written permission is strictly prohibited. Users wishing to obtain permission to reprint or reproduce any materials appearing on this site may contact us directly.

Terms & Conditions

Donation refund policy, automated recurring donation cancellation.

Powered by Firespring

PrepScholar

Choose Your Test

Sat / act prep online guides and tips, 129 great examples of community service projects.

author image

Extracurriculars

feature_housebuilding

Are you interested in performing community service? Do you want examples of service projects you can do? Community service is a great way to help others and improve your community, and it can also help you gain skills and experience to include on your resume and college applications.

Read on for dozens of community service ideas to help you get started volunteering.

What Is Community Service?

Community service is work done by a person or group of people that benefits others. It is often done near the area where you live, so your own community reaps the benefits of your work. You do not get paid to perform community service, but volunteer your time.

Community service can help many different groups of people: children, senior citizens, people with disabilities, even animals and the environment. Community service is often organized through a local group, such as a place of worship, school, or non-profit organization, but you can also start your own community service projects.

Many people participate in community service because they enjoy helping others and improving their community. Some students are required to do community service in order to graduate high school or to receive certain honors. Some adults are also ordered by a judge to complete a certain number of community service hours.

Why Should You Participate in Community Service?

There are numerous benefits to participating in community service, both for yourself and others. Below are some of the most important benefits of volunteering:

  • Gives you a way to help others
  • Helps improve your community
  • Can help strengthen your resume and college applications
  • Can be a way to meet new friends
  • Often results in personal growth
  • Gives you a way to gain work experience and learn more about certain jobs

How Should You Use This List?

This list of over one hundred community service examples is organized by category , so if you're particularly interested in working with, say, children or animals, you can easily find community service activities more related to your interests.

In order to use this list most effectively, read through it and make note of any community service ideas that match your interests and that you may want to participate in. Some considerations to keep in mind are:

Is there a specific group of people or cause you are passionate about? Look for projects that relate to your passion and interests. You may also just want to perform particular community service activities that allow you to do hobbies you enjoy, like baking or acting, and that's fine too.

Perhaps you don't have enough time to regularly devote to community service. In that case, it may be better to look for opportunities that only occur once or sporadically, such as planning special events or helping build a house.

Some people prefer to participate in community service activities that have a quantifiable impact, for example, activities where you know the specific number of kids you tutored, dollars you raised, or cans of food you collected. This is in contrast to activities that don't have such clear numbers, such as creating a garden or serving as a volunteer lifeguard. Some people prefer quantifiable activities because they feel they look stronger on college applications, or because they simply enjoy knowing their exact impact on the community.

Many community service activities can help you gain skills. These skills can range from teaching to medicine to construction and more. If there is a particular skill you'd like to learn for future classes, jobs, or just out of personal interest, you may want to see if there is a community service activity that helps you learn that skill.

an essay on a community project

Want to build the best possible college application, including extracurriculars?

We can help. PrepScholar Admissions is the world's best admissions consulting service. We combine world-class admissions counselors with our data-driven, proprietary admissions strategies . We've overseen thousands of students get into their top choice schools , from state colleges to the Ivy League.

We know what kinds of students colleges want to admit. We want to get you admitted to your dream schools .

Learn more about PrepScholar Admissions to maximize your chance of getting in.

Get Into Your Top Choice School

List of Community Service Examples

Below I've listed over 100 community service ideas to get you started with brainstorming.

General Ideas

Donate or raise money for your local Red Cross

Organize a community blood drive

Send cards to soldiers serving overseas

For your next birthday, ask for charitable donations instead of gifts

Hold a bake sale for your favorite charity

Read books or letters to a person who is visually impaired

Organize a wheelchair basketball team

Participate in a charity race

Organize an event or parade for Memorial Day

Volunteer to help at a charity auction

Participate in National Youth Service Day in April

Contact a tree farm about donating Christmas trees to nursing homes, hospitals, or to families who can't afford to buy their own

Collect unused makeup and perfume to donate to a center for abused women

Help register people to vote

Organize a car wash and donate the profits to charity

  • Help deliver meals and gifts to patients at a local hospital
  • Write articles / give speeches advocating financial literarcy. First you should learn about the topics themselves, like calculating housing costs, or understanding personal loans, and then give presentations on these topics.

Helping Children and Schools

Tutor children during or after school

Donate stuffed animals to children in hospitals

Organize games and activities for children in hospitals or who are visiting hospitalized relatives

Knit or crochet baby blankets to be donated to hospitals or homeless shelters

Collect baby clothes and supplies to donate to new parents

Organize a Special Olympics event for children and teenagers

Sponsor a bike-a-thon and give away bike safety gear, like helmets and knee pads , as prizes

Collect used sports equipment to donate to families and after-school programs

Volunteer at a summer camp for children who have lost a parent

Sponsor a child living in a foreign country, either on your own or as part of a group

Coach a youth sports team

Put on performances for children in hospitals

Give free music lessons to schoolchildren

Become a volunteer teen crisis counselor

Organize a summer reading program to encourage kids to read

Organize an Easter egg hunt for neighborhood children

Create a new game for children to play

Organize events to help new students make friends

Babysit children during a PTA meeting

Organize a reading hour for children at a local school or library

Donate used children's books to a school library

Work with the local health department to set up an immunization day or clinic to immunize children against childhood diseases

  • Volunteer to help with Vacation Bible School or other religious camps

body_tutor

Helping Senior Citizens

Read to residents at a nursing home

Deliver groceries and meals to elderly neighbors

Teach computer skills to the elderly

Drive seniors to doctor appointments

Mow an elderly neighbor's lawn

Host a bingo night for nursing home residents

Host a holiday meal for senior citizens

Make birthday cards for the elderly

Donate and decorate a Christmas tree at a nursing home

Organize a family day for residents of a retirement home and relatives to play games together

Ask residents of a retirement home to tell you about their lives

Pick up medicine for an elderly neighbor

Perform a concert or play at a senior center

Help elderly neighbors clean their homes and organize their belongings

Rake leaves, shovel snow, or wash windows for a senior citizen

  • Deliver cookies to a homebound senior citizen

Helping Animals and the Environment

Take care of cats and dogs at an animal shelter

Clean up a local park

Raise money to provide a bulletproof vest for a police dog

Plant a tree for Arbor Day

Place a bird feeder and bird fountain in your backyard

Start a butterfly garden in your community

Sponsor a recycling contest

Grow flowers in your backyard then give bouquets to hospital patients or people who are housebound

Help create a new walking trail at a nature center or park

Update the signs along a nature trail

Adopt an acre of rainforest

Help train service dogs

Participate in the cleanup of a local river, pond, or lake

Foster animals that shelters don't have space for

Organize a spay and neuter your pet program

Care for a neighbor's pet while they are away

Sponsor an animal at your local zoo

Train your pet to be a therapy animal and bring it to hospitals or nursing homes

Build and set up a bird house

Organize a carpool to reduce car emissions

Campaign for more bike lanes in your town

Volunteer at a nature camp and teach kids about the environment

Test the water quality of a lake or river near you

  • Plant native flowers or plants along highways

body_gardening

Helping the Hungry and/or Homeless

Build a house with Habitat for Humanity

Donate your old clothes

Volunteer at a soup kitchen

Donate old eyeglasses to an organization that collects that and distributes them to people in need

Donate non-perishable food to a food bank

Donate blankets to a homeless shelter

Host a Thanksgiving dinner for people who may not be able to afford their own

Offer to babysit or nanny for a family in need

Make "care kits" with shampoo , toothbrushes , combs , etc. to donate to homeless shelters

Prepare a home-cooked meal for the residents of a nearby homeless shelter

Collect grocery coupons to give to a local food bank

Help repair or paint a local homeless shelter

Donate art supplies to kids in a homeless shelter

Help organize and sort donations at a homeless shelter

Babysit children while their parents look for jobs

Become a Big Buddy for children at a homeless shelter

Take homeless children on outings

Bake a batch of cookies or loaf of bread and deliver it to a soup kitchen

Build flower boxes for Habitat for Humanity houses

Organize a winter clothes drive to collect coats, hats, scarves, and gloves to be donated

Make first aid kits for homeless shelters

Reducing Crime and Promoting Safety

Volunteer at a police station or firehouse

Become a certified lifeguard and volunteer at a local pool or beach

Paint over graffiti in your neighborhood

Organize a self-defense workshop

Organize a drug-free campaign

Sponsor a drug-free post-prom event

Start or join a neighborhood watch program

Create and distribute a list of hotlines for people who might need help

Teach a home-alone safety class for children

Create a TV or radio public service announcement against drug and alcohol use

Become CPR certified

  • Volunteer as a crossing guard for an elementary school

body_lifeguard

Promoting Community Enhancement

Paint park benches

Donate used books to your local library

Become a tour guide at your local museum

Repaint community fences

Plant flowers in bare public areas

Organize a campaign to raise money to buy and install new playground equipment for a park

Participate in or help organize a community parade

Clean up vacant lot

Produce a neighborhood newspaper

Campaign for more lighting along poorly lit streets

Create a newcomers group in your neighborhood to help welcome new families

Petition your town leaders to build more drinking fountains and public restrooms

Volunteer to clean up trash at a community event

Adopt a local highway or road and clean up trash along it

Help fix or raise funds to repair a run-down playground

Clean up after a natural disaster

Now that you know what your options are for community service, you can take the following steps to start getting involved:

#1: Look over your interests: Which activities seem most appealing to you? Were they mostly in one particular category, like children or the environment? If so, that's a good starting place for choosing specific organizations to contact.

#2: Figure out how much time you can devote to community service: Are you available for two hours every week? Are you not free on a regular basis but can volunteer for an entire weekend now and then?

Think about transportation as well and how you'll be able to get to different locations. Knowing this information will help you choose which community service projects to pursue, and it's helpful information for volunteer coordinators to know.

#3: Do some research to see what projects you can do in your community: Check at your school, place of worship, or town hall for more information on volunteering. You can also contact the place where you'd like to perform your community service, such as a particular animal shelter or nursing home, and ask if they take volunteers.

#4: Start volunteering! This list ranges from small projects that you can complete on your own in a few hours, to much larger projects that will take more time and people. If you find a project you can start on your own, do it!

If you want to do a project where you'll need more resources or people, check around your community to see if a similar program already exists that you can join. If not, don't be afraid to start your own! Many organizations welcome new volunteers and community service projects.

Additional Information

Considering doing volunteer work in another country? Read our guide on volunteer abroad programs and learn whether or not you should participate in one.

Are you in college or will be starting soon? Extracurriculars are one of the best parts of college! Check out our guide to learn which extracurricular activities you should consider in college .

Did you know that you can use your community service work to help pay for college? Check out our step-by-step guide on how to win community service scholarships.

Thinking ahead to college applications?

If you’re a freshman, sophomore, or junior worried about college admissions, our world-class admissions counselors can help. We know exactly what kinds of students colleges want to admit and can make sure your profile shines.

PrepScholar Admissions is the world's best admissions consulting service. We've helped thousands of students get into their top choice schools , from state colleges to the Ivy League.

Join our mentoring program today:

Start Planning for College Now

Christine graduated from Michigan State University with degrees in Environmental Biology and Geography and received her Master's from Duke University. In high school she scored in the 99th percentile on the SAT and was named a National Merit Finalist. She has taught English and biology in several countries.

Student and Parent Forum

Our new student and parent forum, at ExpertHub.PrepScholar.com , allow you to interact with your peers and the PrepScholar staff. See how other students and parents are navigating high school, college, and the college admissions process. Ask questions; get answers.

Join the Conversation

Ask a Question Below

Have any questions about this article or other topics? Ask below and we'll reply!

Improve With Our Famous Guides

  • For All Students

The 5 Strategies You Must Be Using to Improve 160+ SAT Points

How to Get a Perfect 1600, by a Perfect Scorer

Series: How to Get 800 on Each SAT Section:

Score 800 on SAT Math

Score 800 on SAT Reading

Score 800 on SAT Writing

Series: How to Get to 600 on Each SAT Section:

Score 600 on SAT Math

Score 600 on SAT Reading

Score 600 on SAT Writing

Free Complete Official SAT Practice Tests

What SAT Target Score Should You Be Aiming For?

15 Strategies to Improve Your SAT Essay

The 5 Strategies You Must Be Using to Improve 4+ ACT Points

How to Get a Perfect 36 ACT, by a Perfect Scorer

Series: How to Get 36 on Each ACT Section:

36 on ACT English

36 on ACT Math

36 on ACT Reading

36 on ACT Science

Series: How to Get to 24 on Each ACT Section:

24 on ACT English

24 on ACT Math

24 on ACT Reading

24 on ACT Science

What ACT target score should you be aiming for?

ACT Vocabulary You Must Know

ACT Writing: 15 Tips to Raise Your Essay Score

How to Get Into Harvard and the Ivy League

How to Get a Perfect 4.0 GPA

How to Write an Amazing College Essay

What Exactly Are Colleges Looking For?

Is the ACT easier than the SAT? A Comprehensive Guide

Should you retake your SAT or ACT?

When should you take the SAT or ACT?

Stay Informed

an essay on a community project

Get the latest articles and test prep tips!

Looking for Graduate School Test Prep?

Check out our top-rated graduate blogs here:

GRE Online Prep Blog

GMAT Online Prep Blog

TOEFL Online Prep Blog

Holly R. "I am absolutely overjoyed and cannot thank you enough for helping me!”

Calculate for all schools

Your chance of acceptance, your chancing factors, extracurriculars, examples of community service scholarship essays.

Does anyone have any examples of successful community service scholarship essays? I'm looking for inspiration and want to get a sense of what helped other students win scholarships based on their service experiences.

Hey there! While I unfortunately don't have any examples on hand, I can definitely provide you with some general tips on how to make your community service scholarship essay stand out:

1. Choose a unique experience: Pick a community service project that is meaningful to you and had a significant impact on others. Your passion and dedication to serving your community shine through in your essay.

2. Focus on personal growth: Reflect on how your community service experiences have shaped your values, taught you important lessons, or influenced your personal growth. You want the broader relevance of this story to your growth and personality to be clear.

3. Use vivid anecdotes: Sharing specific examples and stories to illustrate your points will bring your essay to life and make it more engaging.

4. Demonstrate leadership: If you took on a leadership role during your community service projects, definitely mention that in your essay. Show how you led a team or initiated a project, and how that leadership contributed to the project's success.

5. Quantify your impact: If possible, include some numbers or statistics to illustrate the positive effect your service had on the community. This concrete evidence emphasizes your commitment and accomplishments.

6. Take advantage of CollegeVine's resources: While there aren't any examples included, CollegeVine's blog does have a general breakdown of how to approach this kind of essay: https://blog.collegevine.com/community-service-essay/. And they also offer both a free peer essay review service and paid reviews by expert college admissions advisors - sometimes, an objective look at your essay from someone who doesn't know you, or anything about your community involvement, is the best way of figuring out whether your impact is coming across.

Overall, be genuine and authentic, and focus on painting a vivid picture of your community service journey. By doing so, you'll be able to showcase your dedication and impact, which could help you stand out in the scholarship application process. Good luck!

About CollegeVine’s Expert FAQ

CollegeVine’s Q&A seeks to offer informed perspectives on commonly asked admissions questions. Every answer is refined and validated by our team of admissions experts to ensure it resonates with trusted knowledge in the field.

What are your chances of acceptance?

Calculate for all schools, your chance of acceptance.

Duke University

Your chancing factors

Extracurriculars.

an essay on a community project

A Guide to University of Michigan’s ‘Your Community’ Essay

This article is a first-person account by Robert Crystal, a CollegeVine livestream contributor. You can watch the full livestream for more info. 

What’s Covered:

Breaking down the prompt.

  • Defining Your Communities

The Purpose Behind Your Essay

Tips for writing your essay.

The University of Michigan asks all applicants to respond to its second prompt, which is about the different communities in your life. In this article, we will break down the prompt and go over the purpose behind your writing. By doing this, you can apply what you’ve learned to your own writing as you write your essay for the University of Michigan. 

Prompt 2: “Everyone belongs to many different communities and/or groups defined by, among other things, shared geography, religion, ethnicity, income, cuisine, interest, race, ideology, or intellectual heritage. Choose one of the communities to which you belong and describe that community and your place within.”

For this prompt, you have a 300-word limit to craft your response. This essay fits into a very popular type of essay known as the community essay. Colleges ask you to write about the different communities you are a part of to gain a better understanding of who you are as an individual. The point of all application essays is to provide information about yourself so the college admissions officers can build a better portrait of who you are outside of the classroom. Your grades and test scores are important to understanding who you are as a student but essays are all about your personality.

The University of Michigan is a university that prides itself on the openness and the connection of its community, both between students on campus and between the university and the city of Ann Arbor. For this reason, admissions officers at the University of Michigan want to read about how you’ve contributed to your community. This will give admissions officers a better idea of how you will impact their college community. 

Defining Your Communities 

The University of Michigan’s admissions officers want to learn about the type of person you are outside of the classroom so they can understand how you will fit into its student body. Through this essay, they will decide if you are the type of person they want at their university. To best respond to this prompt, make sure you are answering all their questions. 

Start by defining the different types of communities you are a part of. There is a lot of flexibility in defining what a community is. As stated in the prompt, your community does not only have to be geographical, ethnic, racial, or societal. Your community can be any group that you feel like you belong to and share something in common with. This community can consist of any individuals who share interests with you, such as sports, academic passions, extracurricular activities, or even a tight group of friends who have life values. 

In this essay, focus primarily on your contributions to the community you’re involved in instead of just describing the community itself. This is important because the purpose behind this prompt is to convey who you are and the values or interests you hold. Writing about your community is how admissions officers will gain this information about you. 

During every application cycle, admission officers want to create a well-rounded student body. Each applicant admitted to the University of Michigan fits a certain role in the college community. The university needs to admit applicants who want to run for the student body, compete on the women’s rugby team, or play cello in their orchestra. While you’re writing your response, keep in mind that your goal is to convey how you will fit into the University of Michigan’s student body. 

Start your essay with a hook to keep your reader engaged . Admissions officers read many essays every day during application season, so you must capture their attention early on. With this community essay, you don’t want to spend too much time describing the community itself as this will dilute the impact. Your reader doesn’t need to know how many times you met with your community each week or the type of food served at each meeting. Instead, focus on how your community impacted your values and perspective on life. You’ll also want to focus on the impact you had on this community. 

All your writing should be immersive. You want your reader to feel like they are a part of your story and share the same emotions you have toward your chosen community. This is the best way to get admissions officers to understand who you are.

Related CollegeVine Blog Posts

an essay on a community project

Home — Essay Samples — Life — Personal Experience — The Benefits of Community Service Experience for Me

test_template

The Benefits of Community Service Experience for Me

  • Categories: Community Service Personal Experience

About this sample

close

Words: 1112 |

Updated: 4 November, 2023

Words: 1112 | Pages: 2 | 6 min read

The essay explores the author's personal experiences with community service and the profound impact it has had on their life. The author begins by highlighting the altruistic nature of community service and the satisfaction they derive from dedicating their time to a cause they are passionate about. They mention volunteering for organizations like the SPCA and the Ithaca chapter of United Way due to their love for animals and the sense of community within United Way. The essay goes on to discuss the transformative effects of community service on the author. They describe how assisting abandoned animals made them a more empathetic person and provided a source of happiness and stress relief. Moreover, the experience taught them responsibility, flexibility, and patience. The author reflects on their initial reluctance to engage in community service due to academic stress but reveals how reconnecting with their passion for animals revitalized their commitment. They share stories of making a difference in the lives of children through United Way and bonding with childhood friends who inspired them with their charitable endeavors.

Table of contents

Personal growth and development, the true impact of volunteering, works cited, video version.

  • DoSomething.org. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.dosomething.org/
  • National Service-Learning Clearinghouse. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.servicelearning.org/
  • Points of Light. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.pointsoflight.org/
  • SPCA International. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.spcai.org/
  • United Way. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.unitedway.org/
  • Chan, A. Y. K., & Lee, S. Y. (2018). Effects of community service on social-emotional outcomes: A meta-analysis. Child and Youth Services Review, 86, 1-10.
  • Conway, J. M., Amel, E. L., & Gerwien, D. P. (2009). Teaching and learning in the social context: A meta-analysis of service learning's effects on academic, personal, social, and citizenship outcomes. Teaching of Psychology, 36(4), 233-245.
  • Eyler, J., & Giles, D. E. (1999). Where's the learning in service-learning? San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
  • Moely, B. E., McFarland, M., Miron, D., Mercer, S. H., & Ilustre, V. (2002). Changes in college students' attitudes and intentions for civic involvement as a function of service-learning experiences. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, 9(1), 18-26.
  • Zaff, J. F., & Catterall, J. S. (2003). Studying out-of-school arts participation via the quantitative case study method. Studies in Art Education, 44(3), 227-245.

Video Thumbnail

Cite this Essay

Let us write you an essay from scratch

  • 450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
  • Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

Get high-quality help

author

Dr Jacklynne

Verified writer

  • Expert in: Life

writer

+ 120 experts online

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

Related Essays

4 pages / 1832 words

4 pages / 1636 words

2 pages / 694 words

4 pages / 1601 words

Remember! This is just a sample.

You can get your custom paper by one of our expert writers.

121 writers online

The Benefits of Community Service Experience for Me Essay

Still can’t find what you need?

Browse our vast selection of original essay samples, each expertly formatted and styled

Related Essays on Personal Experience

My experience with the Pennsville Soccer Association has helped me become a more sociable person. I have always been extremely shy, ever since I was a kid. I can remember starting soccer at four years old and not really wanting [...]

Ancona, R. (2018). Latino/a art activism: Engaging culture and change. University of Texas Press.Ayala, K. J., & Medina, C. (Eds.). (2017). Latino art and culture in the United States: The Mexican-American experience. [...]

Well before saying what's beautiful to me, I would like to come clear on the meaning of beauty. This word is inspired from the ancient Greek culture which believes anything that is worth admiration, it's contribution leading to [...]

Growing up in a household where Italian and Japanese food cultures were both represented, you can imagine my confusion as to which approach to food was correct. Should I gorge myself on all of the bread and pasta my stomach [...]

Society often misjudge people because of how they look on the outside. In the story, On the Sidewalk Bleeding by Evan Hunter, shows that people presume other people’s personality by their looks. Andy, the protagonist of [...]

In an e-commerce environment where millions of transactions take place between the providers and users, a need for the establishment of the validity of the service provided arises. A customer feedback system has been provided [...]

Related Topics

By clicking “Send”, you agree to our Terms of service and Privacy statement . We will occasionally send you account related emails.

Where do you want us to send this sample?

By clicking “Continue”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy.

Be careful. This essay is not unique

This essay was donated by a student and is likely to have been used and submitted before

Download this Sample

Free samples may contain mistakes and not unique parts

Sorry, we could not paraphrase this essay. Our professional writers can rewrite it and get you a unique paper.

Please check your inbox.

We can write you a custom essay that will follow your exact instructions and meet the deadlines. Let's fix your grades together!

Get Your Personalized Essay in 3 Hours or Less!

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

  • Instructions Followed To The Letter
  • Deadlines Met At Every Stage
  • Unique And Plagiarism Free

an essay on a community project

Help | Advanced Search

Computer Science > Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition

Title: emo: emote portrait alive -- generating expressive portrait videos with audio2video diffusion model under weak conditions.

Abstract: In this work, we tackle the challenge of enhancing the realism and expressiveness in talking head video generation by focusing on the dynamic and nuanced relationship between audio cues and facial movements. We identify the limitations of traditional techniques that often fail to capture the full spectrum of human expressions and the uniqueness of individual facial styles. To address these issues, we propose EMO, a novel framework that utilizes a direct audio-to-video synthesis approach, bypassing the need for intermediate 3D models or facial landmarks. Our method ensures seamless frame transitions and consistent identity preservation throughout the video, resulting in highly expressive and lifelike animations. Experimental results demonsrate that EMO is able to produce not only convincing speaking videos but also singing videos in various styles, significantly outperforming existing state-of-the-art methodologies in terms of expressiveness and realism.

Submission history

Access paper:.

  • Download PDF
  • HTML (experimental)
  • Other Formats

license icon

References & Citations

  • Google Scholar
  • Semantic Scholar

BibTeX formatted citation

BibSonomy logo

Bibliographic and Citation Tools

Code, data and media associated with this article, recommenders and search tools.

  • Institution

arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators

arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website.

Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them.

Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs .

  • Share full article

Advertisement

Supported by

Guest Essay

Black Families Can Now Recover More of Their Lost Histories

An illustration of a person looking up at a large head, in portrait. Tiles of color form a grid over the head, some falling off as though they are sheets of paper falling to the ground.

By Edda L. Fields-Black

Dr. Fields-Black is the author of “Combee: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom During the Civil War.”

In many ways, the overgrown cemetery on a South Carolina rice plantation where my paternal ancestors are buried is emblematic of Black history itself. On my first visit in 2013, I went in search of the Fields family graves. There I found many unmarked graves, some of them nothing more than sunken depressions, as far as the eye could see. A few had simple headstones. One marked grave had been broken wide open by a fallen tree limb, and had filled with water. I was horrified to see my ancestor’s skeletal remains floating at the top.

After researching the history of peasant rice farmers in West Africa for over a decade, I had recently extended my research to enslaved laborers on Lowcountry South Carolina rice plantations. But I had not thought to research my own family’s history. Seeing that open grave made me feel as though I had turned my back on my ancestors. I pledged then to find out who was buried in that cemetery and tell their story.

African Americans searching for their family histories often have only small irregular pieces of an enormous puzzle. Most of those pieces are missing because enslaved African Americans were not recorded by their first and last names. Until recently, identifying enslaved and formerly enslaved people who lived before that time was virtually impossible. To complicate matters, professional historians typically analyze and interpret plantation owners’ records, which identify enslaved people as property and by first name only, and describe the violence that was done to them, how their labor was exploited and their bodies abused. These records deny our ancestors’ humanity.

Because of these limitations, it had become accepted as fact among historians and genealogists that efforts to recover African American family histories reaching back to the time of slavery would hit a brick wall.

Today, I’m excited to report, the brick wall, or at least a large part of it, has been dismantled. Projects to digitize enormous troves of once-difficult-to-access records are giving African American families opportunities to recover more of our lost past and offering historians the potential to enrich and rewrite the history of slavery.

When I embarked on my journey to research my father’s family’s history, all I had to go on was a list of names from the census that included that of Hector Fields, my great-great-great grandfather, and his direct descendants. It wasn’t much, but it was something; most African Americans can trace their families back only a few generations. I knew I would need new tools to uncover the history of my enslaved ancestors.

Fortunately, my mission aligned with the International African American Museum’s Center for Family History in Charleston, S.C., one of the first genealogical centers focusing on African Americans. The center is open to both scholars and individuals who want to use the museum’s resources to research their family history and the role African Americans have played in building and shaping the nation. Perhaps the most valuable resource of all is the United States Colored Troops Pension File Project , which is collecting the pension files of the African American men who served in Civil War regiments and making digitized records available to all, not just to scholars like me. Because these files have been so underused as a historical source, the potential for discovery here is exciting.

Decades after the war, Black veterans, along with their widows, dependents and neighbors, told their stories of enslavement and freedom when they applied for pensions for their military service. Approximately 140,000 formerly enslaved men fought in the Civil War. Approximately 83,000 Black Civil War veterans received pensions.

To help in my search, the Center for Family History’s researchers identified a Hector Fields who had enlisted in the Second South Carolina Volunteers. He had a military service record, but no pension file. They later found the file of a Jonas Fields who served with Black troops in the 128th Regiment.

In Jonas’s pension file, a woman by the name of Phoebe Washington testified that she had two brothers, Hector and Jonas Fields, who went after the war to work on rice plantations in the same area where the Fields family I knew lived. She gave the names of their parents, Anson and Judy, and the name of the family who held them in bondage in downtown Beaufort. With one pension file, I was able to fill in multiple gaps in my family tree: I found my great-great-great-great grandparents, Hector Fields’s siblings, and the location where most of my paternal grandfather’s family had been enslaved.

Jonas Fields’s pension file also confirmed that I am a direct descendant of the same Hector Fields who fought in the famous Combahee River Raid in 1863, when Harriet Tubman, who was working as a spy for the United States Army, provided key intelligence in the daring expedition to rescue some 700 people from bondage on seven South Carolina rice plantations.

My cousins and I were so proud. We were also profoundly sorry that our Fields family patriarch who had pointed me to the plantation cemetery did not live long enough to learn of this important history.

Eventually I collaborated with the International African American Museum to widen my research beyond my own family and help identify hundreds of the 756 enslaved people who liberated themselves in the Combahee raid, then trace their lives backward into enslavement and forward into freedom.

It may sound difficult, but it is easier than you think for African Americans who are not professional researchers or scholars to break down the brick walls in their own family histories: Use genealogical search engines like Ancestry.com or Family Search to identify ancestors who have Civil War pension files, then order copies from the National Archives or view them on the museum’s Center for Family History website (for South Carolina regiments). If you are fortunate enough to obtain a file in which other soldiers testify, you can deepen your research by requesting these soldiers’ pension files, too. The testimony of your ancestor’s widow, comrades and neighbors in another soldier’s pension file may hold additional keys to your family history.

African American veterans approved for Civil War pensions could have thousands of descendants, so millions of African Americans could recover their family’s history using these recently digitized records. I hope that the files will inspire and energize historians to create tools and methods of recovering our ancestors’ names, voices and stories. This knowledge could have profound effects on what Americans know about slavery and how we grapple with its legacy.

My cousins and I have come together to fix the grave in the cemetery that had been damaged and to identify and mark one of the Fields family’s unmarked graves. There are still pieces missing from my family’s puzzle, but finding Hector Fields was the beginning.

Edda L. Fields-Black is a professor of history at Carnegie Mellon University and the author of “ Combee: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom during the Civil War .”

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here’s our email: [email protected] .

Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook , Instagram , TikTok , X and Threads .

Montour's first solar project may start construction in 2024. What to know

The first-ever community solar project in montour is on pace to debut this year in schuyler county. see the details..

Montour’s first-ever community solar project is on track to start generating power in 2024. 

A signed community host agreement is the last remaining piece of the puzzle for Above Grid Montour Solar LLC, which has proposed a solar installation at 4245 county Route 14 in the town of Montour. A strip of forest sits between the solar site and the road. The topography will largely shield the project from public view, said town supervisor David Scott. 

“They’ll never see it in the summer time. It will never be seen just because of where it’s at,” said Scott. “I’ve lived here forever. I don’t even look at that, and I drive up the road every day.” 

Some additional trees will be planted after Montour residents neighboring the property raised concerns at a planning board meeting. 

“We had a very good public meeting for the planning board. The majority of the neighbors showed up that had property all the way around this project,” said Scott. “They voiced their concerns. One of them wanted some trees put in. Our engineer came back and showed where they could plant some more trees so they couldn’t see it.” 

How much does the solar project cost?

Above Grid Montour Solar is investing over $7.7 million in the project, which is expected to create 20-25 construction jobs. The Schuyler County IDA approved sales and use tax benefits up to a little over $218,000 on purchases of around $2.7 million. 

The project is also the subject of a 15-year PILOT agreement. It will generate an estimated $518,803 in property taxes during that span. Without the project, the property would generate roughly $140,000 over the same time frame, assuming a 2% escalator. 

The property improvements are valued at $2.5 million, with nearly $668,000 in real estate tax abatement under the agreement. 

More: Montour Falls park is set for major upgrades. How it will impact visitor experience

How much power will the solar project generate? 

The Montour project is a 5 megawatt solar installation. Scott said the electrical infrastructure in the area made the property a good fit for a solar project. The property covers 27.3 acres overall, with the solar installation spanning 20 acres. The solar panels will rotate to follow the path of the sun and maximize efficiency, Scott said. 

New York's climate goals call for the state to generate 70% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030.

A portion of the property is considered prime agricultural land. During a February meeting considering the Above Grid Montour Solar project, IDA board member Chad Hendrickson said the IDA should weigh such factors when considering the fee structure for future solar projects. 

“When they’re going in and taking that prime ag land out of use, to me there should be a fee for that,” said Hendrickson. “But if they’re willing to put it at a site that is appropriate for this particular function, we should reward them for that.” 

More: Solar developers approached two NY farmers. Their choices reveal an industry in crisis

When will the project begin construction? 

The town has conducted all of its due diligence and will consider approval of the community host agreement at an upcoming meeting. The agreement includes a decommissioning plan after 25 years, when the site will be returned to its current state. 

Above Grid said the company will likely apply for a building permit in the second quarter of the year. 

“It’s getting closer,” said Scott. “If everything goes right they should be able to start putting it in (this year) and maybe have it in by fall.” 

IMAGES

  1. High Quality Custom Essay Writing Service

    an essay on a community project

  2. The glamorous 500 Word College Essay Examples Writings And Essays In

    an essay on a community project

  3. essay about community

    an essay on a community project

  4. Download reflective essay example 45

    an essay on a community project

  5. Financial Need Scholarship Essay Example

    an essay on a community project

  6. Why Is Community Service Important?

    an essay on a community project

VIDEO

  1. || Importance Of Education || ||Essay Writing ||♻️♻️

  2. How to write an A+ essay in Medical School EVERY TIME ✍🏼

  3. Article on topic CO-Education

  4. Community guidelines be like:

  5. Visual Essay

  6. Community Assignment

COMMENTS

  1. How to Write the Community Essay: Complete Guide + Examples

    Introduction. How to Write The Community Essay. Step 1: Decide What Community to Write About. Step 2: The BEABIES Exercise. Step 3: Pick a Structure (Narrative or Montage) Community Essay Example: East Meets West. Community Essay Example: Storytellers. The Uncommon Connections Exercise.

  2. How to Write a Great Community Service Essay

    A community service essay is an essay that describes the volunteer work you did and the impact it had on you and your community. Community service essays can vary widely depending on specific requirements listed in the application, but, in general, they describe the work you did, why you found the work important, and how it benefited people ...

  3. Essays About Community Service: Top 5 Examples Plus Prompts

    5 Top Examples On Essays About Community Service. 1. Essay on Community Service and Its Importance by Joni Kim. "The service helps the group of people in need, for example, senior citizens, children, people with disability and the likes. Sometimes community service is geared towards solving problems related to the needs of community members ...

  4. Community Development Essays (Examples)

    Community Development. Community development is a course of action, where people not only work to increase their income or to produce more jobs but also helps in managing changes "in their community," and that is a process which is performed by the members of the local community. There is a strong interaction between the two words "community ...

  5. How to Create Successful Community Service Projects

    Step 3: Choose a Project. List your activity ideas. If you have a group of people you're going to work with, allow them to help you rank the ideas from most to least important. Vote on or decide which activity you want to do. Make sure it is reasonable, within your means, and that you can actually make an impact.

  6. How to Write the Community Essay + Examples 2023-24

    UW Community Essay Example Analysis. This student also manages to weave in words from the prompt ("family," "community," "world," "product of it," "add to the diversity," etc.). Moreover, the student picks one of the examples of community mentioned in the prompt, (namely, a religious group,) and deepens their answer by ...

  7. Writing a College Essay About Community and Examples

    The author expresses the importance of rituals and family which is an excellent topic for a college essay about community. The topic of the essay is mentioned within the first two to three sentences of the piece, making use of limited space. The word "community" is explicitly used which shows admissions staff you know how to follow ...

  8. Community Service Essay

    2. This essay sample was donated by a student to help the academic community. Papers provided by EduBirdie writers usually outdo students' samples. Cite This Essay. Download. Community service is a rewarding experience that helps build stronger, more connected communities. By dedicating our time and resources to benefit our neighbors and those ...

  9. How to Write a Community Supplemental Essay (with Examples)

    Community supplemental essay prompts come in a number of forms. Some ask you to talk about a community you already belong to, while others ask you to expand on how you would contribute to the school you're applying to. Let's look at a couple of examples. 1: Rice University.

  10. 57 Community Service Essay Topics and Examples

    Community service should be required by most citizens of a country. One of the reasons is because President Clinton has been explaining the importance of volunteering to the community by the American students and the public. We will write. a custom essay specifically for you by our professional experts.

  11. Tips for Writing a Standout Community Service Essay

    We get a peek into their perspective and life, which makes the writing more vivid and relatable. Aim to bring your reader into your world as much as possible. 3. Share your responsibilities and accomplishments. The more tangible your community service activities feel to the reader, the more powerful your essay will be.

  12. How To Write A Community Service Essay That Gets You Accepted

    Showcasing your community service in your college essays is crucial for demonstrating your character, values, and personal growth. By choosing meaningful service experiences, highlighting leadership roles, and connecting your involvement to your own development, you can craft a compelling narrative that showcases your impact on the community.

  13. CC

    Get a blank sheet of paper, turn it horizontally, and create these columns: Column 1: Identify the problem. Describe the challenge you were (or are currently) facing. The problem could be something global, like an environmental issue, or something more local, like a lack of creative opportunities in your high school. Column 2: Raise the stakes.

  14. Indigenous Community Project Development

    This essay sample was donated by a student to help the academic community. Papers provided by EduBirdie writers usually outdo students' samples. ... L., Wood, L. and Daws, L. (2003). Community capacity building: Starting with people not projects. Community Development Journal, [online] 38(4), pp.277-286. Available at: https://academic.oup.com ...

  15. Essay on A Summary of My Community Service project

    For my community service project I did a large variety of projects. I completed a total amount of seventy-one hours, which includes: eleven hours of in school hours, and sixty hours of out of school service. The groups I worked with include: The Immaculate Conception School, The Merimack Heights Academy, and the Mad Science program.

  16. 10 Examples of Great Community Service Projects

    4. Cleanup. A community cleanup will improve the look of your neighborhood or park and inspire people to keep the space looking great. Hosting a potluck after is a wonderful way to celebrate this community achievement! 5. Blood drive. Every two seconds, someone in the U.S. needs blood.

  17. 129 Great Examples of Community Service Projects

    Participate in or help organize a community parade. Clean up vacant lot. Produce a neighborhood newspaper. Campaign for more lighting along poorly lit streets. Create a newcomers group in your neighborhood to help welcome new families. Petition your town leaders to build more drinking fountains and public restrooms.

  18. Examples of community service scholarship essays

    While I unfortunately don't have any examples on hand, I can definitely provide you with some general tips on how to make your community service scholarship essay stand out: 1. Choose a unique experience: Pick a community service project that is meaningful to you and had a significant impact on others. Your passion and dedication to serving ...

  19. A Guide to University of Michigan's 'Your Community' Essay

    The Purpose Behind Your Essay. In this essay, focus primarily on your contributions to the community you're involved in instead of just describing the community itself. This is important because the purpose behind this prompt is to convey who you are and the values or interests you hold. Writing about your community is how admissions officers ...

  20. Essay about Community Service Project

    Community Service Report Essay Community Service Argumentative Essay Personal Essay on Community Service Community Service: Helping Elderly Essay High School Community Service Hours Essay Community Service Leadership Essay Projects Failure: Reasons And Preventions Success Factors Of Project Manager Reflective Essay on Group Project

  21. 60 Ways to Better Your Community

    Volunteer to clean up trash around a neighborhood. Create a mural that depicts values of your community. Set up an art exhibit at a local business, sell the creations, and use the money to fund a cause in your community. Collect supplies for persons who have been victims of a fire or other disaster. Plant a community garden.

  22. The Benefits of Community Service Experience for Me

    Engaging in community service provides students with the chance to emerge as lively contributors of their community and has a lasting, high-quality have an impact on on society at large. This lies in the truth that it connects us to the community via enhancing it, and making it a better place for all of us to live in.

  23. Essay Sample on the Community Housing Project

    Essay Sample on the Community Housing Project. There is a need to solve the housing problem that is facing most of the low-income groups across America. The imbalances to access to quality housing impede the lower socio-economic groups from living in clean and desirable environments.

  24. Opinion

    Opinion Guest Essay. ... Calls to the advocacy organization Rainbow Youth Project USA spiked after news of Nex ... recognizes his own party's public attitude toward the L.G.B.T.Q. community as ...

  25. Sora: A Review on Background, Technology, Limitations, and

    Sora is a text-to-video generative AI model, released by OpenAI in February 2024. The model is trained to generate videos of realistic or imaginative scenes from text instructions and show potential in simulating the physical world. Based on public technical reports and reverse engineering, this paper presents a comprehensive review of the model's background, related technologies, applications ...

  26. [2402.18929] Navigating Beyond Dropout: An Intriguing Solution Towards

    Deep learning has led to a dramatic leap on Single Image Super-Resolution (SISR) performances in recent years. %Despite the substantial advancement% While most existing work assumes a simple and fixed degradation model (e.g., bicubic downsampling), the research of Blind SR seeks to improve model generalization ability with unknown degradation. Recently, Kong et al pioneer the investigation of ...

  27. [2402.17485] EMO: Emote Portrait Alive -- Generating Expressive

    arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is ...

  28. Black Families Can Now Recover More of Their Lost Histories

    Guest Essay. Black Families Can Now Recover More of Their Lost Histories. Feb. 29, 2024. ... Perhaps the most valuable resource of all is the United States Colored Troops Pension File Project ...

  29. Cambridge Gives Residents an Opportunity to Vote on How to Spend a

    The City of Cambridge is excited to once again invite community members to vote on projects aimed at improving the city as part of the 10th Participatory Budgeting (PB) process. From March 7 to March 17, 2024, all Cambridge residents aged 12 and older, including all 6th graders and university students, will have the opportunity to participate.

  30. First solar project in Montour likely to start construction in 2024

    Montour's first-ever community solar project is on track to start generating power in 2024. A signed community host agreement is the last remaining piece of the puzzle for Above Grid Montour ...