Photo courtesy of Jenna Weiss
Students who choose to participate in the Charger Challenge do so by completing 120 community service hours throughout their time in high school. For their efforts, they receive recognition and an extra cord at graduation.
The Charger Challenge is something that is no longer required of students prior to graduation. According to assistant principal Mattie Smith, the state of North Carolina previously required all high school students to complete some amount of community service in order to graduate. However, Northwood opted to keep the challenge as an option for students who wanted to give back to the community when the requirement was omitted about three years ago.
“For some kids, it gives them a warm feeling when they help others,” Smith said.
Beverley Foxx-Willams, one of the receptionists in the front office, has been in charge of the challenge for about three years. Currently, students must request approval to volunteer at a non-profit organization before earning hours. Though no major changes were made, the pre-approval rule was added when Foxx-Williams became the director of the challenge.
“The pre-approval rule is in place to ensure a student’s volunteering location is approved before they start working,” Smith said. “If students go through the pre-approval process, tell us what they want to do and let us do our homework, we can give approval.”
Several students have had issues with the process of having their hours approved, though Smith estimated that about 50 seniors completed the challenge last year. Senior Mallory Storrie volunteered by spending time in a kindergarten classroom, earning 106 hours. Her hours were rejected because she did not get the activity pre-approved.
“It has really frustrated me to see my hours not be accounted for,” Storrie said. “I’m not sure if I want to pursue it anymore.”
The current rules regarding approval of volunteer sites and hours state that students may work at places that have been previously approved. Students may seek approval for sites that are not on the list before they begin volunteering by filling out a form for Foxx-Williams to review.
Though the rules are explicitly stated on the school’s website, some students were not aware of the full process.
“I have over 150 hours for UNC Hospitals that have been rejected,” said senior Jenna Weiss, who had intentions of completing the Charger Challenge. “I didn’t know you had to get it approved before you started working there.”
Storrie said she was not aware that there are restrictions on the time of year that students can earn volunteer hours.
“You can’t be working during exam break because you’re technically supposed to be in school,” Storrie said.
Though according to Smith, the challenge is supposed to be something to encourage students to be involved in the community, in some cases, it has proven to be a stressor.
“If you work for a non-profit organization, you should be able to get credit for the hours,” Weiss said.
Storrie and Weiss both intend to complete hours to give back to the community rather than to earn the extra cord.
“I’m still going to do hours, but I don’t know if I’m going to turn them in at the end of the year,” Storrie said. “I’m really passionate about serving the community, but the cord is not worth going back and forth with whether something is approved or not.”
– By Rachel Stoner
