Does this count as serving the underserved?

[nontrad:PP]

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Hi all! I might just be over thinking this, but I was wondering if these volunteering activities would count as serving underserved communities in the eyes of adcoms. I'm still accumulating hours but I'm wondering if I have the right idea in terms of impactful volunteering activities.

I'm a non-trad who is working full time while completing prereqs, so many traditional volunteering opportunities don't really fit into my schedule, but I can adjust the types of activities if it's needed! I'm aiming to apply in 2028.

Red Cross Volunteer (about 110 hours total, spread across a few different functions)

• Blood drive volunteer - checking in donors, answering questions, and supporting the donation center by restocking snacks
• Local disaster response - mainly spent these shifts on call. Responded to a house fire once at a local senior living community but have since removed myself from the call schedule due to schedule conflicts.
• Community disaster preparedness - installing free smoke alarms in the local community. Have been to a lot of diverse and lower income neighborhoods and been in many homes without functioning smoke alarms. I mainly play the role of an educator/documenter while a partner installs the smoke alarms.

Homeless shelter (only about 5 hours lol but I just recently started, hoping to get more but it's tough to get it into my schedule)

• Childcare for women at the shelter
• Meal service and prep

Children's grief non-profit (haven't started yet but am anticipating being a regular volunteer since many opportunities are during weeknights)

• "Buddy volunteering" with children and families who are experiencing grief from the loss of a loved one. I'm still waiting on orientation for this but most volunteers spend time engaging in therapeutic and recreational programming with kids and sometimes their family members. The program has a large emphasis on teaching kids to cope with grief and building community between children and families experiencing grief.
• This is the main one I was wondering if it would count as community service? Maybe I'm just over-thinking it? Since it's a lot of emphasis on facilitating activities and creating a healing space for kids, I worry that it isn't necessarily "going outside of my comfort zone" as I've heard many community service experiences being described.

Any input is appreciated! Thanks 🙂

 

[chilly_md]

No. Only one would be the homeless shelter. The non-profit sounds like a good experience though.

 

[nontrad:PP]

No. Only one would be the homeless shelter. The non-profit sounds like a good experience though.

Gotcha, I'll try to add on some more hours/keep being consistent with the shelter volunteering

 

[Moko]

Hi all! I might just be over thinking this, but I was wondering if these volunteering activities would count as serving underserved communities in the eyes of adcoms. I'm still accumulating hours but I'm wondering if I have the right idea in terms of impactful volunteering activities.

I'm a non-trad who is working full time while completing prereqs, so many traditional volunteering opportunities don't really fit into my schedule, but I can adjust the types of activities if it's needed! I'm aiming to apply in 2028.

Red Cross Volunteer (about 110 hours total, spread across a few different functions)

• Blood drive volunteer - checking in donors, answering questions, and supporting the donation center by restocking snacks
• Local disaster response - mainly spent these shifts on call. Responded to a house fire once at a local senior living community but have since removed myself from the call schedule due to schedule conflicts.
• Community disaster preparedness - installing free smoke alarms in the local community. Have been to a lot of diverse and lower income neighborhoods and been in many homes without functioning smoke alarms. I mainly play the role of an educator/documenter while a partner installs the smoke alarms.

Homeless shelter (only about 5 hours lol but I just recently started, hoping to get more but it's tough to get it into my schedule)

• Childcare for women at the shelter
• Meal service and prep

Children's grief non-profit (haven't started yet but am anticipating being a regular volunteer since many opportunities are during weeknights)

• "Buddy volunteering" with children and families who are experiencing grief from the loss of a loved one. I'm still waiting on orientation for this but most volunteers spend time engaging in therapeutic and recreational programming with kids and sometimes their family members. The program has a large emphasis on teaching kids to cope with grief and building community between children and families experiencing grief.
• This is the main one I was wondering if it would count as community service? Maybe I'm just over-thinking it? Since it's a lot of emphasis on facilitating activities and creating a healing space for kids, I worry that it isn't necessarily "going outside of my comfort zone" as I've heard many community service experiences being described.

Any input is appreciated! Thanks 🙂

All of these are great experiences that I would consider to be non-clinical volunteering (non clinical since none of those you are interacting with are patients).

While the 3rd position isn't typically thought of as an "underserved" population, I still think that it's going out of most people's comfort zones given that you will be dealing with the topic of death for children who see and understand the world through very different lens. Just my thoughts and best of luck.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Concurring, these are good volunteering opportunities, but #2 helps show adcoms you are willing to gain frontline insight into Social Determinants of Health (i.e., non-clinical or medical factors). The other options: Red Cross/Red Crescent activities you have described address acute challenges; SDOH addresses systemic, longstanding factors.

The grief non-profit community service certainly helps with empathy, compassion, cultural humility, and communications skills competencies. Unless there is more, service orientation is arguably secondary to these other attributes. As described there isn't a specific SDOH focus.