As of April 30, there were seventy Lincoln seniors who had submitted zero community service hours. Many of these students are currently desperate to get hours as soon as possible, so that they can go to prom and graduate. The new deadline for turning community service hours in was today, May 15, but these deadlines have known to be extended.

Last minute community service opportunities that Lincoln has advertised in its announcements have included CCS track meets, a special event held at the Mexican Heritage House, and the Relay for Life Event at Willow Glen High School on May 2, which had students working from 8am to 8pm and earning 20 hours

Community Service: is it really necessary? That is a question that many seniors ask themselves. Many students think that community service shouldn’t be required to graduate; it just holds them back from graduating. Jose, who wants to remain anonymous, a Lincoln junior, said, “I think that community service should not be necessary to graduate.” In our school, Abraham Lincoln High School, we are required to work forty hours to graduate. In other states, there are different amounts of required community service and the rules are enforced differently. For example, in some schools in Washington state students have to do 200 hours of community service to graduate. On the other hand, some schools do not require community service at all to graduate.

Community Service is not like volunteering, because community service can be forced. If you have done a crime then the judge might order you to do community service to repay your crime. There are many students who dislike doing community service. Occasionally, students are so desperate for hours that they falsify their hours. However, the school calls each agency to verify the student’s hours, and there are many consequences for this behavior if they get caught. One of those consequences is getting removed from the graduation ceremony, and they could even be sent to court and get fined as well.

Forging community service is a big problem nowadays. Since many students wait until the last minute to do their required hours, they instead decide to falsify those hours. There have been cases in which students have falsified their hours and have been caught. For example, at Oak Lawn High School there was a group of seniors who forged their community service and were removed from the graduation ceremony once they got caught.

Community service can be earned in many ways, but can only be earned if it is from a non-profit organization. Community Service may seem like a drag to many kids, but actually it is helping them develop working skills that could help them later in life.