Charger Challenge is a school initiative to get students involved in the community. It requires students to complete 120 hours of community service to be recognized at their graduation. Charger Challenge was started several years ago as part of a statewide requirement for a senior graduation project that was only funded for one year.
After the initial year, Northwood no longer made Charger Challenge a requirement, but this year, 15 seniors still completed their hours and will be honored at graduation. This group of 15 is a drop from the 40 who completed Charger Challenge in 2015.
“I think [less students completed Charger Challenge] because it wasn’t a requirement, but that’s still not a good number,” said senior Alexis Hollis, who completed the most hours this year at 267.
However, Hollis said that for her, completing her community service was easy.
“I do [enjoy volunteering],” Hollis said. “It’s just good to see other people happy. When you do stuff for other people, even when you’re down, it makes you feel good.”
Senior Brooks Holt, who completed 125 hours, agreed the community service was easy.
“When I volunteer, it’s not specifically for Charger Challenge hours,” Holt said. “I just volunteer because I like to help people. I’m very involved in my church, and I have a specific group of people I work with, and I love working with them, so it’s good. I just like it.”
Senior Kayli Blankenship agrees that completing the hours is more than being recognized at graduation.
“Every summer with our youth group, we do different mission trips around the community, and I was able to get most of my hours doing that during the summer, which is something I would do anyway that just happened to meet the qualifications,” Blankenship said.
Besides the extra recognition at graduation, it is no secret that many colleges look for community service on students’ applications. Principal Justin Bartholomew says it gives students a competitive advantage.
“[If I were] a college looking to improve my reputation, I would far prefer a student who struggles academically but will work hard to support his or her community to a student who has perfect grades but contributes little or nothing to the community,” Bartholomew said.
Holt recounts a specific example where her community service helped her immensely.
“I actually got an EC Scholars Scholarship, which is the full ride to ECU, and one of the essays I had to write for that was about volunteering,” Holt said. “It was like 90 percent essay; that was the reason you got the scholarship, so it definitely gave me an edge. The fact that I had so many volunteer hours and the fact I was able to talk about it and had personal experiences with the people I’m volunteering with to write about in my essay definitely helped me.”
Blankenship enjoys her time volunteering and also thinks it is beneficial on college applications.
“I think [my Charger Challenge hours] probably help a lot,” Blankenship said. “I know a lot of people’s GPA and test scores are pretty similar, and when it comes to a certain point, if you have a lot of community service hours, I think it helps put you over the edge.”
According to Bartholomew, if you are looking to boost your resume, completing your Charger Challenge hours will benefit in more ways than one.
“Getting good grades and being a good student is wonderful; being a good person to your fellow man and building strong character is even more important,” Bartholomew said.
– By Chloe Maynard