By Nadine St-Jacques
Maya Santoro is a straight-A Grade 12 student at Glebe Collegiate — but she may not be able to graduate with her classmates in June.
That’s because she hasn’t been able to fulfill her volunteer hours required by the provincial government. She’s applied to volunteer at 15 organizations but has been turned to down by each and every one.
“It’s just ridiculous to be accepted to university on condition that you do these hours of community service,” says Santoro.
With the elimination of the OAC year and this year’s double cohort, 17-year-old Santoro says the extra stress of looking for a volunteer placement is overwhelming. “I work very hard on my school work and that’s basically what I’ve been taught, you’re supposed to do well in school in order to graduate.”
Organizations such as Reach, which helps people with disabilities, the Salvation Army and the Civic Hospital, have refused Santoro’s application because she is younger than 18 years old and because these organizations already have too many volunteers.
That means there is a flood of students racing to the available spots. Although the students have known about the community service hours since Grade 9, many waited until the last year of high school to complete them.
“People don’t really think about (volunteering) and then we are all hit with it at the same time, and there is a huge scramble to get it done,” says Santoro. She says the schools should be giving them placements to make it easier for students.Santoro has even had to give up her part-time job and extra-curricular activities to search for volunteer hours, and do all her homework.
“I can’t have a lot of the same things I had before, I can’t go out as much, I have nothing in the bank now,” she says.
She will have to work especially hard this summer to make enough money for university tuition next year. That’s if she graduates.
Her mother, Wiz Long, an administrator at Carleton University, is also concerned her daughter might not graduate. “She is very stressed. She doesn’t need this. She’s already got the stress of the double cohort.”
That’s why Long has been trying to help her daughter find a placement.
“I’ll come home and find clippings of ‘volunteers needed’ from the paper on my bed. She looks around,” says Santoro.
Long agrees that the concept of community service is a good thing, but says the timing is bad for double cohort students. She says the province shouldn’t lump volunteer work and a diploma together.
“Tying it to their convocation is ludicrous.”
Santoro continues to search for a volunteer placement to complete her hours by May 31. She’s recently put in an application for Winterlude, but says she won’t be able to log the 40 hours she needs because the event is too short.
Whether or not Santoro will graduate this June is still uncertain, but Santoro says she’s “not confident at all.”