Each summer OLS Bellevue College partners with a local business or organization to provide volunteer opportunities for
students. Volunteering provides the students with an opportunity to contribute to their community and to practice work skills that they will need in the future. It’s a great way to build new skills and to continue to keep busy during the summer. For some students, volunteer activities involve getting out of their comfort zone and doing things they had never done before. For others, volunteering is a way of exploring different jobs and careers. For all of them, volunteering is a way to become a contributing citizen.
This summer, a group of 7 students volunteered for 6 weeks at Tilth Alliance, an non-profit organization whose mission is to build an ecologically sound, economically viable, and socially equitable food system. Our students have sorted, weighted, and bagged all kids of produce and have prepared more than 4500 bags to be delivered to food lovers in the community. These students have put in practice many of the performance indicators they work on in class and have been able to transfer those skills to a work setting. We all had fun and, as is our tradition, we all had doughnuts on our last day!
Students practiced their self-determination by choosing to come every day to a volunteer activity. They learned valuable work skills that they will be able to use in their future careers as well as a work experience to add to their resumes. They also had an opportunity to add new people to their networks and continue seeing their friends during the summer.
To learn more about Service Learning and volunteering in the OLS Bellevue College program, please visit our Curriculum Page. We invite you to register for an Information Session to learn more about the OLS program.
Last Updated December 7, 2021