If you have been given community service hours by a court, what you should do is to do your community service work as soon as possible. The problem that many people face after receiving the community service hours is to determine which organization or institution which will accept them to conduct community service.
Be calm! Keep in mind, community service is part of your probation or sentence, so you may need to find the places to do your community service that will give you comfort. No worries! This post will show you the guide to get community service hours in a great place. Okay, let’s see our post below!
Easiest Way to Get Community Service Hours for Court
There are many options for you to complete your required service, no matter the reason you have been assigned mandatory community service. In this post, we will help you get started as quickly as possible to do community service.
Basically, community service can be performed as a condition of probation that is considered restitution by an inmate through assisting his or her community. The service here means activity, actions, engagement performing something which needs to be performed and it will help the community or a cause.
There are some options that you can choose to conduct community service, here are they:
1. Choose registered nonprofit organization
The community service ideally should be performed at a registered nonprofit organization or through a government agency. The community service will need to be approved by the court or your probation officer or school before you begin it.
A registered nonprofit is the organization which has a federal tax id number. If you are unsure if an organization is a registered nonprofit, you can ask if they have a federal tax id number or search for the organization on Guidestar.org (This is a database of all registered nonprofit organizations in the USA).
However, your mandated community service may not be performed to benefit a community of faith such as synagogues, churches, temples, mosques, etc. What you should do is to check with your probation officer, a teacher at your school, your court liaison or whomever has assigned you with community service to ensure your service will be accepted before you start working with such an organization.
2. Choose a government agency
Another alternative, you may be allowed to do your community service with a government agency such as a city-sponsored anti-drug program, a public school, a national park or state park, a community court, a prison or jail, etc.
3. Choose a for-profit company
You can also choose a for-profit company if it provides community services to the community and involves volunteers. The for-profit companies here include a for-profit hospice, a for-profit hospital, a for-profit retirement community or a for-profit home for people with intellectual disabilities.
Why is It Recommended to Do Community Service in a Non-profit Organization?
Since community service should be performed voluntarily (unpaid work), of course, choosing a nonprofit organization to do your community service would be better. Well, valuable experience that you will obtain is that not every thing or work needs to be exchanged for money. Of course, you will do it sincerely.
Conducting community service in nonprofit organizations is totally permitted. However, you need to check with your probation officers, a teacher at your school, your court liaison or whomever has assigned you with community service.
It’s important to note, you do not need to express any religious affiliation or a belief in God to volunteer for Habitat for Humanity. However, you may need to express a belief in God in order to volunteer for the Boy Scouts.
If you choose to help your family with tasks such as taking your grandmother to the grocery, baby sitting your sister’s kids, cleaning your mother’s house, etc, of course, it will not be accepted as your community service.
Furthermore, it is your responsibility to understand the court’s or school’s or also university’s requirements for documenting your community service. You may also need to create prior arrangements with each organization in which you want to volunteer and to ask if they can meet your document requirements.
No matter how urgently you should complete your community service, a nonprofit organization has the right to fire you or let you go as a volunteer. Of course, they are under no obligation to keep you, particularly if you have missed shifts, violated policies and many more.
Steps to Complete Your Community Service Hours for Court Faster
You may need to do some steps to complete your community service on time, here are they:
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- First, you may need to buy a paper notebook or make a spreadsheet.
- Then, you can capture the name of every organization that you can call or sign up with to express interest in volunteering, the date you talked with the organization, the date you contacted the organization. If the organization does not accept you, make sure to note the reason why they reject you.
- At the time you should provide documentation on your volunteering, you may need to show the documentation which shows all that you did to find volunteering activities. Ideally. It must be a list of at least 50 organizations.
- After that, the judge may or may not provide you an extension to get your community service hours. However, they most certainly will not if you do not have this documentation ready to share with them.
The important things to note:
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- Make sure not to pay any organization which says they will give you documentation regardless of completed community service in exchange for a fee or a donation.
- Make sure not to pay any organization which has a website that offers to help you complete court-ordered community services. However, it does not have a nonprofit ID number posted on its website, a list of staff, a list of its board of directors, a list of staff, or a physical mailing address.
- Make sure not to pay any organization which says it is a nonprofit, but it is not listed at Guidestar.com.
- Make sure not to pay any organization which posts ads on Craigslist saying that they can assist you get documentation for court-ordered community service.
A bookworm and researcher especially related to law and citizenship education. I spend time every day in front of the internet and the campus library.
