I’m working on starting my own health and well-being club. My plan is to expose students to all sorts of health related topics in the community, such as sports medicine, holistic medicine, mental illnesses, etc. Each topic covered would involve a guest speaker coming in and a community service project relating to the topic. I have found some international organizations to fund-raise and serve. My one concern is my ability to draw the interests of students. I can provide community service hours, but are there any other ideas that I can use to attract members?
"My plan is to expose students to all sorts of health related topics in the community, such as sports medicine, holistic medicine, mental illnesses, etc. "
“My one concern is my ability to draw the interests of students.”
It looks like you have an answer but there is no question. You want to teach something that is of limited interest to fellow HS students. Perhaps trying to start something from scratch, why don’t you look to volunteer at your community health center – where people with actual ailments actually will visit.
And let me address the elephant in the room: starting a club to drop on your resume is old hat…
“Old hat” is a nice way of saying it. To put it more bluntly, it’s trite, shallow, and more often than not absolutely worthless, from both perspectives (helping with college admissions and positively impacting your HS community).
How do you guys know OP isn’t generally interested in pursing a career in health? I think the club is a great idea if you’re genuinely interested in the topic. There’s a health club at my school that has attracted enough members.
Are there guidelines for how many members you need to become an official club? It might be as few as 5 members. Find a potential club adviser and start talking to them about your ideas. You can make fliers and advertise on the school announcements/website. Unless your school is tiny, you should be able to gain enough interest and members. Good luck!
T26E4 is on the money. Rather than starting a club for 5 people (each of whom gets to be an ‘officer’) and hunting around for community service opportunities that require time but no skill or investment, get in touch with organizations that provide real health services to people who need them and volunteer there. If you are any good, you will discover that the organization has lots of needs that a smart, creative, intelligent student could potentially help fill - by recruiting others to volunteer, doing some statistical analysis of their population, helping with the fund-raising, providing tech support, etc…
In contrast to what some of the other commentors have said, I think that, if you are genuinely interested in doing this, you should go for it. I think that, if done well, meaning if done with genuine care and interest, this could be a club that has a positive effect on the students in it. However, if you’d be doing it just for resume padding, I would advise against doing so; I did too many resume-padding activities in high school, and some of them just stopped being fun. Also, things that you lead without caring much about can also have a negative effect on other students involved; they can and will sniff out the lack of care and it can actually hurt them as people. So watch out there.
As for attracting members, you could approach other somehow-related-to-health clubs, or sports teams for that matter, to see if you could speak to them as a guest and try to recruit some of their members, or talk to school councilors, coaches, and/or athletic trainers to see if they’d be willing to talk to their students about the club or share any ideas they’d have about attracting members. Also, if any of your friends or acquaintances are also interested in the theme, ask them to join and help them spread the word. Spearpoint leading an organization all by yourself can be very difficult; having people there who you can rely on can make a big difference.
@thatrunnerkid wrote:
I don’t disagree. However, note that all the parents/adults on this thread say avoid another cliche resume padder. Why hasn’t this amazing OP who is so dedicated to spreading health information to his/her peers exhausted the existing means available in the community? has the OP spent 10 minutes trying to spread health information before this epiphany to “start a club”? Why re-invent the wheel? Then, (SMH) the OP wonders if HS students are even interested in the topic being discussed. Cart before the horse?
“Health and well-being” club? How about investigate addiction or drug experimentation? How about see how much the drop out rate is related to substance abuse? How about educating kids on Adderal or roofies or abusive bf/gf relationships?
To me it boils down to this: can the OP honestly say that the goal of health education is much more important than his/her trying to be the founder of a club. In my +25 yrs of interviewing and recruiting, this is what is so consistently bland, stale, and enormously unoriginal.
Here’s another litmus test for you wannabe club-founders out there: what’s your succession plan? Who is the officer you’ve tapped to take over once you get your diploma? Don’t have one? Thought so.
Somehow, some virus-like information that “Start a club; shows great leadership” got into the heads of HS students. They perilously forget the reality that there are and were some FANTASTIC organizers/activists who, upon looking around them saw nothing that could meet a VITAL and UNMET need, went out and with blood, seat and tears carved out a new organization to really have long lasting effects in their school or community or church, etc. Instead, they think some club that raises a few thousand to donate to some charity, does one or two events in 3 years or prints up some t-shirts and flyers – qualifies. I simply disagree.
Maybe I and the other adults have mis-read the real scenario that the OP poses. Maybe OP lives in an area with low education/income and a dearth of good health services. If so, best of luck to him or her. But I kinda doubt that …
My school already has a club that delves into drug abuse topics. Besides, isn’t a health club a broader topic compared to an anti-drug club? My club could not only attract those interested in staying safe in sports, but also those who wish to pursue a career in health, or even give back to the community through medicinal support. My club isn’t limited to just medicine or the notorious “future doctors” kind of club. Is there another way to make my club even broader or is that a bad idea? Thanks!
@dragon1128 you haven’t addressed the central issue that others have mentioned…why not put your time, energy, and interest in this topic into an existing organization in your community? Surely there will be hospitals, shelters, youth programs in your area that would love to have your help. Believe me, colleges are far more interested in meaningful volunteer work than any club you will create. Are you interested in majoring in something related to this interest? If so, you really need to find ways to show that interest, and being involved with volunteering is a GREAT way to do that. Volunteering has other rewards too: get to know some of the people in the place you volunteer and it could turn into an actual job offer (it did for me), or you may get a great letter of recommendation from the organization you volunteer with. It might be possible to find some research opportunities within such an organization, or you might be able to do some actual good helping people. You might make valuable connections with others that you will not get from a club at school. I would listen to @T26E4 , I have read many of his comments and posts over the last couple of years. He clearly is involved with colleges in some capacity and knows what he is talking about.
If you proceed with your idea, turn it into something bigger. Contact organizations within your community and ask them if there is a way your club could help the community. Then that might be impressive.
OP, I just have to say that, if you are genuinely interested in this topic, go for it. I am a senior and I started a medical community service club at my school during my sophomore year. With this club, I started a free medical clinic for a local homeless shelter. It wasn’t easy, but I was able to do it because I really cared about my club. So, if this is something that you want to do, then do it.
Scouting organizations came up with an idea like this a few years ago as a leadership project. Teens are supposed to come up with a sustainable service project idea and carry it out, then find someone to carry it on after they graduate. There are only so many of those types of things that small communities can maintain. I think, in most cases, teens can do more good volunteering at an established organization.