As many Marymount students know, you must complete a service project in Junior year called the John 10:10 Project. One must complete thirty service hours at an approved non-profit organization, as well as a written report. To Freshmen and Sophomores, the concept of this project may sound intimidating, but in reality, you are given beneficial resources and lengthy time to do the project. Personally, I am volunteering at TreePeople, an organization that helps combat environmental degradation in Southern California. With that being said, I’d like to give the Freshmen and Sophomores crucial tips for their John 10:10 Projects!

First, I highly recommend getting most of your hours in over the summer. As a Junior, there’s already a lot of stress from school and extracurricular activities, so completing most of it during the summer will save you! If you already have obligations over the summer, then no worries! You can allocate your hours for specific periods of time and keep up with them.

I also suggest gathering a group of friends to volunteer at the same organization. At TreePeople, I carpool with a group of friends to locations, recently conducted an interview, and will be doing our final video portion of the project together. This helps alleviate a lot of stress because we can work altogether on certain aspects of this large project.

In addition, remember to take good pictures and keep track of what you did each session or day. Pictures are a necessity to show the work you are doing! You are also given a sheet to indicate the activites we did on a certain day, and I notice it can be difficult to remember what you did if you forget to write. So, you should definitely write down the activities immediately after your time segment.

Most importantly, do something you are truly passionate about! This is so important for this project because it demonstrates your interest throughout your report and empowers you to keep pursuing that service. Who knows, maybe you’ll continue your service at an organization once your project is completed!

I hope that my advice for the John 10:10 Project has benefited some Freshmen and Sophomores. Good luck to you all and embrace this service opportunity!