By Jordan Hannan

With the continuously rising pressures of honors and AP classes, standardized testing, and college applications, the academic life of a high school student can be quite isolating, filled with solitary study and individual results. The adolescent mindset is stuck in this self-serving culture, and high schools are looking for impactful ways to connect students and form a supportive community. Sporting events, school dances, class celebrations, and team dinners might feel like the right addition, but the perpetuation of this dilemma, despite this common conclusion, proves its fruitlessness. Our solution? An emphasized student outreach program.

The difference between the effects of a class picnic and a team volunteering day might seem negligible at first glance: a group of students doing something unique to their normal activities while having fun as a community. However, serving others has lasting positive effects, while the memories of a luncheon are already fading. 

• Service builds connections. Whether it is a group of freshmen who have never met or a close-knit soccer team, working together to help others will spark new connections. Combining teamwork, communication, and trying new things, outreach programs allow students to strengthen their interpersonal and problem-solving skills, which are difficult to teach in a classroom setting but intrinsic for life. 
• Service spreads social awareness. While many educators discuss current events in class, these issues feel far away if not acted upon. When fully immersed in the solution to poverty and hunger in the area, students get a better understanding of just how real these situations are, and they are better educated on how to continue combating them. Similarly, when exposed to a variety of nonprofits, teens are given the opportunity to find a new passion or continue working at and donating to similar charities. 
• Service gives your life purpose. During the busiest times of the school year, high school students can get caught up in the cycle of their overscheduled lives. While the reward of an A on an assignment eventually loses its meaning, the visible impact of volunteering continues to affect others far longer. By incorporating community service into your life, you also add fulfillment and gratitude.

But how can high schools implement student outreach programs? 

• Encourage each organization within the school to have a service day. Clubs, athletics, student government, and academic teams could all use new and engaging team building exercises. By finding a nonprofit related to your activity, more genuine and valuable connections are formed between the students, service, and the impacted community. 
• Provide student leadership opportunities. High school students are always looking for things to add to their college resumes, and leading service projects would be a great inclusion.
• Switch up your charities regularly. Add variety to the volunteer opportunities by continuously finding new partners. Not only will this engage the students, it will also expand the high school’s impact by diversifying and increasing the communities they reach. 

Let us help you get started! Triangle Cares connects volunteers and nonprofit organizations; check out our website to find charities to partner with for your student outreach program. 

By Jordan Hannan

Yes: Undoubtedly. Easily. Immediately. 

We are surrounded by innumerable, seemingly insignificant chances to create a better world. Unfortunately, these situations are usually overlooked or blatantly ignored. If we collectively decided to consistently hold the door for the person behind us, skip on disposable plastics, and warmly greet strangers, we would all feel more supported, appreciated, and a little less of the effects of global warming. But how can we volunteer our time, talent, and treasure in the same manner? 

As I have mentioned previously, you don’t necessarily need to free up more time in order to volunteer, and the same goes for donating: no matter your financial standing, there are opportunities for your treasure to benefit the lives of others, and it will only change 1% of your routine:

1. Find charities that are in most need of your donations. After cleaning out your closet (an easy and effective way to help others without spending any extra money), you may be tempted to bring your donations to the largest and most well-known thrift store. However, these stores are so overwhelmed with donations that much of it is wasted, disposed of, or donated a second time. Instead, find smaller nonprofits that truly need and appreciate your support, where you can better impact the lives of others. 
2. Notice who is profiting off your weekly purchases. Buying anything, whether it be gifts or groceries, has the potential to make a difference. Look for brands or products whose proceeds support different causes: if you need new socks, check out Bombas as opposed to the generic brand. Support the Pura Vida charity collection or 4Ocean next time you’re buying a birthday gift. There are endless opportunities to make subtle swaps for the benefit of your favorite causes. 
3. Fully utilize your influence. While donating seven cans of tomato sauce will not end hunger and poverty, multiplying that initiative by your school, corporation, or neighborhood can jumpstart that motion for the rest of your city, state, and country. Therefore, invite and inspire your friends, family, and peers to join you in your fundraisers and clothing drives; it takes no extra effort on your part, but it completely magnifies how you positively affect others. 

Visit Triangle Cares next week to discover why it is so important to implement service among schools.  

By Jordan Hannan

Brooke does absolutely everything but sleep. She’s a two-sport athlete, enrolled in one of the most rigorous course loads possible, works two jobs, and is the most incredible friend to everyone around her. Not only that, but she was also the first of my friends to inquire about how she could volunteer through Triangle Cares when I first joined the team. Even when her schedule doesn’t allow for rest, Brooke continues to prioritize having a positive impact on others. She’s able to accomplish everything she needs to, as well as everything that the average person makes excuses to get out of. How can this be possible for the rest of us?

Despite its simplicity, the common idea of donating your time, talent, and treasure can be quite difficult to put into practice, particularly due to the rarity of free time. Everybody deems their lives to be busy, indicated by the growing market for productivity apps and time-saving home-automation accessories. If we have convinced ourselves that we’re too preoccupied to even queue up a playlist without Alexa, it must seem even more inconceivable to dedicate hours at a time to cleaning up trash at your local park or serving at the nearest soup kitchen. However, incorporating service into your weekly schedule doesn’t have to be a great disruption or huge commitment:
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1. Find opportunities to serve in locations that you already frequent. Throughout the school year, I was able to easily accomplish this by serving at and through my high school, Cardinal Gibbons. However, I then had trouble finding a solution to my inability to continue this during the summer, as opportunities had become both rare and inconvenient. This led me to become a lector and Eucharistic Minister at my church, a place I already needed to visit weekly. By volunteering in a place I’d already be, I am able to benefit my community without taking up any more of my time. 
2. Add a service element to the events you’re already hosting. As an extremely social person, spending time with my friends is the most attractive weekend activity. However, I’m not actually particularly excited to go to the park or out for lunch; I just want to see my friends and family. Therefore, I would recommend replacing some of these activities with volunteering or fundraisers. If your baseball team is planning an end-of-year team dinner, suggest collecting donations at the door or supplement the event with a service outing beforehand. By adding volunteering to a tradition or event you already participate in, incorporating service is easier, as you have already carved out the time for the previous activity. 
3. Instead of donating your talent, give of your treasure. For high schoolers, this aspect of service tends to be overlooked due to their general lack of means. Having said that, treasure doesn’t only reference checks worth hundreds or thousands of dollars. Old clothes, childhood toys, and canned goods are always needed by our nonprofits, and they can make a huge difference, especially when multiplied by the number of students in your clubs and school. Check out next week’s blog for more information about making donations. 

If you’re in need of some new nonprofits to donate your time to, check out our website here!

By Jordan Hannan

It seems that there’d be absolutely no way that a middle schooler could raise four thousand dollars from a charity bake sale in an elementary school cafeteria, but I did. For four consecutive years. 

My limited skill set would never allow for even the formation of this service project. However, when combined with that of my peers, family, and school community, we were able to donate a total of $16,000 to the Marfan Foundation. My grandmother’s and teachers’ baking, parents’ organization, and peers’ support were equally integral in ensuring the success of the project, though I doubt our eager patrons ever realized just how many uniquely talented people had helped in its creation. 

While it’s obvious that any business would need website developers, accountants, leaders, handymen, or marketers, we tend to disregard that a nonprofit might need to fill those roles also. There is far more to any organization than the food drives and charity events that one-time volunteers attend. Without the donation of your skills, nonprofits would never be able run successfully, eliminating all potential for service opportunities or positive change. 

The concept of volunteering tends to get put into a box--as if the only way you can contribute to your community is by donating a bag full of canned green beans once a year. Instead, nonprofits are the culmination of innumerable volunteers’ talents. If you are looking to provide long-term support for your favorite charity, here are some ways you can get started:

Take a look at your career. Your résumé is filled with skills that can be easily applied to serve others, whether you are a teen with a part-time summer job or a parent with a twenty-year history with your corporation. My mom provides a great example: She’s an accountant, making her extremely organized and comfortable with numbers, so she volunteers as the head of the finance committee at our parish. Similarly, if you tutor younger kids, you would be a wonderful addition to the Gigi's Playhouse team. If you wait tables, A Place at the Table would love to have you. 

Reconfigure your hobbies. While there are plenty of service opportunities that align exactly with your interests (check out our blog regarding this here), don’t limit yourself to just those. A friend of my parents, Jon, exemplified this perfectly by channeling his knack for construction into creating a book cart for our local NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit). If you love to draw, find a nonprofit in need of new digital advertisements. Try leading a charity 5k if you’re a talented runner or great host. Focus on why you excel in your extracurriculars rather than activities themselves. 

The balance between school, work, service, athletics, and social activities may seem overwhelming or nearly impossible; allow Triangle Cares to help you find time to serve in next week's blog.

By Jordan Hannan 

While it is entirely preferable to find your passion without the intervention of a life-changing event, I was not so lucky. June 15th, 2020 left me bedridden with the worst pain I have ever endured, finding sleep nearly impossible during the nights but unavoidable during the day, horizontal and bored out of my mind for 23 hours every day for weeks on end. What left a 14-year-old girl with a dozen “get well soon” blankets and stacks of sweets that only her family could enjoy: a complete spinal fusion, gifting me with two metal rods, four wires, and twenty-two screws in place of one fully-functioning spine. 

My experience was undoubtedly horrendous, but there were several positives: my impressively short four-day stay at Duke University Hospital, the life-altering discovery of Sour Patch Kid Watermelons, and eating what I thought were the most delicious meals this planet could offer. (According to my mother, the grayish hospital oatmeal and rice was not the delicacy I thought it to be.) Among these highlights, however, was finding what makes me happiest: spending time with others. 

I’ve always been a social person, but I’d never realized just how much I needed to be surrounded by others until that was almost entirely taken away from me. Despite the difficulty I had even holding up my phone, FaceTiming my sister from my hospital bed was the first time I remember smiling after my 9-hour surgery. Later, the Fourth of July finally allowed me to see my four grandparents for the first time, and I’d never been happier, even though my overexcitement left me in an immense amount of pain. I knew that nothing in this world could provide the same sheer contentment of being with other people. 

However, finding something you enjoy is not the same as finding your passion. I clearly love talking to others, but that alone is entirely too shallow to consider it the most valuable part of my life. The same goes for any hobby you might have--sports, music, cooking, or painting. You can, however, find depth by using your hobby to give back to others. While you may have several hobbies that you enjoy, your sole passion, the element of your life that you feel like you could never live without, must not only better your life, but also the lives of those around you. 

For me, this takes place in many ways, but all have taught me to better appreciate my love for meeting new people and spending time with those I already know. At Cardinal Gibbons High School, I lead tours for prospective students and families. Similarly, I volunteer as a counselor for underclassmen retreats and as a greeter at my church. My parents have also turned their passions into service--my father combined his love for golf with my mother’s affection for our family, creating the Kaitlyn and Jordan Classic, a charity golf tournament made to give back to Duke Children’s, the hospital that saved the lives of both my sister and me. This deepened connection between the cause and the volunteer greatly increases the impact of their service, allowing the discovery of your passion to incite positive change.

The Triangle Cares website contains the contact information for all sorts of nonprofits that can be aligned with your passion, strengthening its influence on your life and the lives of others. However, if you are still unsure how you can share your talent to serve others, allow us to help you next week.  

By Jordan Hannan

As if she always had a dozen invisible balloons tied to her wrist, my close friend Kate is smiling every waking moment. Like her, there are some people that just seem so ecstatic to be alive, as though they personally selected that day’s shade of blue to color the sky. A seemingly simple characteristic, continuous genuine happiness, is becoming increasingly rare, and therefore even more admirable.

Fleeting happiness? Incredibly easy to find: a vacation, a night out, an A on a test, or winning a championship. Any of these events, while exciting in the moment, have no longevity when it comes to providing your life with value. The satisfaction of an A on a test fades with the impending anxiety of the next exam. The same goes for a family vacation: leading up to and during your trip, you are a flurry of anticipation and gratitude. However, as soon as the plane lands back in RDU, the longing for the next holiday begins. Finding “happiness” in momentary experiences or materialistic achievements is not adequate when seeking to live a complete life. 

There are three ways to effectively eradicate this pattern of thinking revolving around temporary reward, while simultaneously replacing it with the unending positivity of a consistently cheerful person:

1. Notice other people. This is quite possibly the most overlooked habit, despite its effortlessness and impact. I could point out the stranger who complimented my outfit a year from now, which employee offered to carry my takeout to the car when I nearly lost the garlic bread, and which of my peers never fails to enter class with a greeting. It sounds incredibly easy to pick up a dropped toy for a preoccupied and overwhelmed father, to hold the door for someone balancing three boxes, or to actually remember your mail carrier's name, and that’s because it is. When you put in the extra--yet minimal--effort that it takes to notice other people, it brightens their day while freeing you from the cycle of thinking of only your own life.
   
2. Express gratitude in the moment. The concept of prioritizing gratitude, especially for the purpose of shared happiness, has become mainstream and feels redundant. However, the emphasis is always placed on internal thought, as if your appreciation must be contained to a ten-line list in the journal on your desk; this is beyond untrue. For some unknown reason, we seem to assume that everyone already knows that they’re loved, appreciated for their assistance, or cherished for the time spent with them. Usually, that is not the case, but, even if it is, they always deserve to hear it again. The kindest people I know gift flowers to the living, are always quick with a “thank you”, and spend their time and money giving back to the organizations that have served them. 
   
3. Find deeper meaning in the activities you already partake in. We all have a plethora of different hobbies and interests, and they certainly provide happiness, but they don’t necessarily offer lifelong value. However, there are endless nonprofit organizations, each with unique missions, that can allow you to turn your hobby into something that can benefit the lives of others. If you love baseball, become a mentor at Miracle League; if you ride horses, dedicate your time to helping young girls at CORRAL; if you love to cook, spend your  afternoons at A Place at the Table. By channeling your interests into service with meaning, you can incorporate your passions into your life in a more influential way, creating a domino effect of positivity. (Triangle Cares would love to connect you with the perfect nonprofit! Our site lists a variety of local charities to help you get started.)
   

Spreading positivity by finding your passion is easier said than done, so allow us to help you get started with next week’s blog. 

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By Jordan Hannan

One week ago, I spent two full days raving to my three family members about my spectacular experience picking up a singular quesadilla from Moe’s Southwest Grill. If you’re wondering what could have possibly made such a mundane experience so notable, I am, too: The employee who prepared the meal did so enthusiastically before passing it along to her coworker. When handing me my to-go bag, the cashier screamed, whipping it back toward himself explaining, “The lid was about to come off. I didn’t want you to lose your chips.” Grateful for his extra care, I held the door for a fellow patron, who wished me a great day on her way out. Clearly, this is not the outstanding narrative that my sister expected after volunteering to hear my third rendition of this story. How could finding three kind strangers in one spot be this newsworthy?

By 2016, an estimated 900 million people were stuck feeling unfulfilled by their lives, and that number has only increased since. Not only that, the 2022 World Happiness Report concludes that, “Positive emotions have generally been twice as prevalent as negative ones. That gap has been narrowing over the past ten years, with enjoyment and laughter on a negative trend in most regions, and worry and sadness on rising trends.” Despite the objections that seem to follow these studies, our daily interactions with others prove their veracity. 

It’s never difficult to tell whether someone is a generally happy or unhappy person; a traffic light, coworker, or mixed-up order could determine so. Stopped at a red light, some drivers will grumble for the entirety of the wait before sounding their horn the moment it switches to green. Others will take the moment to appreciatively sip their morning coffee or lovingly pet their dog in the passenger seat. When they both arrive at work, the first will assure that everyone they interact with is up-to-date on their latest inconvenience, while the latter will kindly remember to ask their coworker how their weekend was or include them in their lunch plans that afternoon. When their break starts, both end up at the local sandwich shop. When their orders are swapped, the first will blame the cashier and complain for the remainder of the day, while the second will thank the store for their apologetic replacement. The course of these two workdays were entirely up to the mindset of the individual, one being entirely reactionary while the other focused on gratitude. 

Unfortunately, the vast majority of us witness the unhappy scenarios far more frequently, and they will undoubtedly continue unless we, individually and collectively, invoke change in order to lead more fulfilled lives. Happy people do not universally identify as the same race, gender, or economic class. However, they consistently share a feeling of purpose, whether that be through a hobby, their work, their interactions with others, or volunteering. 

The quickest way to ensure that you lead an unhappy lifestyle is to isolate yourself from others, to neglect caring for your health, and to see life with a fixed, negative perspective. Not only that, you also--so generously--cultivate a community of unhappy people through your infectious actions. However, at Triangle Cares, we believe that one happy person brings about another, and we would love to teach you how to be a changemaker in positivity in next week’s blog.

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