There are many social ills currently plaguing society. While the list of them is too long to repeat herein, just a few issues that impact modern society include: large numbers of homeless people; economically depressed school districts; lack of health care, food, and quality housing for immigrants; high numbers of incarcerated minority youth. While many of these issues are complex and involve many disciplines in any attempted amelioration or resolution, community service is one method of helping ease these social ills which has economic, psychological and anthropological dimensions. Community service is basically people helping people. There is no payment for those who volunteer to perform community service, but the rewards are great for the individuals assisted as well as among those providing it. These rewards span economic, psychological and anthropological dimensions. On a deeper level, these social science disciplines are integral components of social service work like community service.
Economically, community service is essential to the well-being of many who would not otherwise have the economic resources to assist themselves. For example, distributing clothing to the poor during the cold months is an excellent way of assisting economically society’s least financially able. Often services for the poor rely largely on subsidies, whether they are federal, state, local or private donations. Because of this, many social services organizations are on limited budgets that never stretch as far as the needs they try to fulfill for the disadvantaged. By people donating clothing and volunteering time to assist in the distribution of it to the needy, a major economic function is served by community service. Without the donation of resources like clothing and time (resources that otherwise require funding) many of the people who received clothing during the cold months would have went without such basic needs because of a ...