El Paso area High School students are volunteering to help others. Sorta... 

A new "Community Service Hour Requirement" now, officially, applies to ALL El Paso high school students.  (It began a couple of years ago but, certain students already enrolled were exempted.)  A website, volunteerelpaso.org, was created to give students projects to take on and to keep track of their hours. According to El Paso Herald Post online:

This year’s senior class is the first cohort required to complete 30 hours of community service per year or 120 hours for their four years of high school. The requirement began in fall 2014.

Students aren't limited to only the projects on the website. Students with sick or elderly relatives can count time spent caring for them and those with special circumstances can be excused from the program completely. In fact, pretty much any activity counts as long as it "does not raise money, is not part of a disciplinary action, or is not for family purposes."

Here's the thing though .... it' s great to teach kids to help out but, is it really volunteerism if you're forced to do it?

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