Community Service

Please refer to the Paly Community Service Guidelines, which contains specific information on what volunteer hours count and what hours do not count towards Paly Community Service.

Welcome! Thank you for giving back to your community and volunteering your time. While there is no community service requirement for graduation, many Paly students are engaged with the community and track their service hours. By submitting community service hours, students confirm that they have read the Paly Community Service Guidelines and agree to follow them.

Important Announcements

Youth Community Service (YCS) Office Hours at Paly
YCS hosts office hours for students at Paly Wednesdays at lunch and Thursdays from 8:30 - 11 am in room P3. Drop in to get help with:

service hours
service opportunities
Do Service platform

If you need help outside of those hours, you can email to schedule an appointment: service.award@youthcommunityservice.org. For urgent matters, call: 650-200-0814

If you are rising 9th - 11th grader and have additional questions about YCS' DoService platform, or questions about the hours you've submitted for approval in DoService, please contact: register@youthcommunityservice.org.
If you are a verifying adult with questions about verifying service hours in DoService, please contact: register@youthcommunityservice.org.
If you are an organization who wants to let Paly know about service opportunities, YCS maintains an opportunity database on its website; please contact Isaac Braunstein

Looking for community service opportunities? Check out the Community Service Opportunities slides or the YCS Calendar for ideas.

What is community service?

Community service is a non-paying job performed by a student for the benefit of the community or its institutions.

Since Paly is a public school, approved volunteer organizations are non-profits, not faith-based, not partisan and focus on providing a service to others in the greater community.

Volunteer hours do not necessarily equate to Community Service hours or Paly transcript hours. (Class of 2026 only)

Starting with the Class of 2027, volunteer hours will no longer be listed on Paly transcripts. Paly is partnering with YCS's Do Service platform solely as a courtesy to those who wish to track volunteer hours

Why do community service?

Engaging in community service provides students with the opportunity to become active members of their community and has a lasting, positive impact on society at large. Community service enables students to acquire life skills and knowledge, as well as provide a service to those who need it most.

NOTE: There is not a "community service" graduation requirement. However, a few classes may assign community service as a part of their required coursework (e.g. Living Skills).

Paly Community Service Guidelines

Youth Community Service (YCS) Do Service Platform

Starting June 2025, all Paly rising 9-11th grade students will use the Youth Community Service (YCS) platform to find service opportunities, track their hours, and earn service awards. The YCS DoService platform will be replacing HelperHelper. All HelperHelper hours have been transferred into YCS DoService. HelperHelper will not be monitored as of September 16, 2025.

How to Get Started with the YCS Do Service Platform

If you have already created a YCS DoService account for Paly's Service Day on April 28, 2025, you are all set.

If you are setting up your DoService account for the first time, please follow the steps below, to register.

Check your PAUSD inbox for a message from register@youthcommunityservice.org. If the email does not appear, check spam. If it still does not appear, reach out to alliyah@youthcommunityservice.org.
Follow the link in the email to customize your password.
Fill out your profile information and sign a wavier. After signing the waiver, you will be prompted to send the parent waiver to your parent via email. Ask your parent to check their inbox for a from message from register@youthcommunityservice.org. If the email does not appear, check spam. If it still does not appear, reach out to alliyah@youthcommunityservice.org. Follow the link in the email to sign the parent waiver. If you run into trouble, check out this quick 3-minute video.
YCS and Paly are working together to transfer HelperHelper hours into YCS DoService. If you want to add hours NOT already in Helper Helper, you can do so by logging into your YCS profile and clicking “Add Hours.” If you get stuck, check out this 2-minute video guide.

Transcript Hours (Class 2026 only)

In order for a student's volunteer hours to be recorded on their Senior-year transcript:

The community service hours must be performed during the student's Paly academic career, from the day after 8th grade promotion to the Fall of their senior year;
A student must have completed 100 (or more) volunteer hours during their Paly academic career; and
A student's community service hours must be entered on HelperHelper and APPROVED/VALIDATED.
All volunteer hours must be submitted for approval by Monday, September 15, 2025 to be added to your transcript.
If you do not want your volunteer hours to appear on your transcript, please email Karla Larson at klarson@pausd.org

Helper Helper Set-Up

Each Paly senior will be given a HelperHelper account that they can use to record service hours.

How to get an account:

Access to HelperHelper is typically given to students by the end of September of their Freshman year.
Students who entered Paly after Freshman year, and who need a HelperHelper account, should contact palycommunityservice@gmail.com.

How to access your account:

Download HelperHelper from the App Store, GooglePlay, or use the HelperHelper website.
Use your school email address and password to log in.
After you log in, you can add the community service hours you have completed.

HelperHelper Process

Students should enter all of their community service hours into HelperHelper. An overview of the process is below.

When entering your community service hours in HelperHelper:
- Do not use acronyms in your entry.
- Opportunity Field - Be descriptive about the work you completed (e.g., "Middle School Tutor" not "Volunteer")
- Coordinator Name Field - Enter a person’s first and last name. Cannot be a family member.
- Coordinator Email Field - Enter a valid email address for the volunteer coordinator. Cannot be a family member.
- Message to Coordinator Field - Approvers use the information in this field to better understand the work you completed. Please use this field to:
  - Summarize actual volunteer work completed.
  - Include a date range (MM/DD to MM/DD) for hours that span more than one day.
  - If this field is left blank and your opportunity description is unclear, your hours may be rejected.
A verification email is automatically sent to the volunteer coordinator to approve hours.
If your community service hours have not been approved by the volunteer organization within one week, follow-up with the volunteer coordinator to confirm they received the email from HelperHelper to approve your hours.
Once your hours have been approved by the volunteer organization, the Paly Community Service team will review your HelperHelper entry to confirm that it follows the Paly Community Service Guidelines. Hours will be approved/verified if they meet the guidelines.
Entries that have not been approved by the volunteer coordinator within three months may be deleted from your HelperHelper account.

It is the student’s responsibility to make sure that the Volunteer Coordinator’s name and email are correct and that the hours get approved by the Volunteer Coordinator.

President’s Volunteer Service Award (PVSA)

Unfortunately, the President's Volunteer Service Award program has been put on a temporary pause by the governing organization, AmeriCorps. As such, Paly is no longer able to issue Presidential Volunteer Service Awards. There no indication of when the program may resume. You can find more information about the PVSA pause on their website. Thank you for volunteering.

Further help?

If you are rising 9th - 11th grader and have additional questions about YCS' DoService platform, or questions about the hours you've submitted for approval in DoService, please contact: register@youthcommunityservice.org.

If you are a verifying adult with questions about verifying service hours in DoService, please contact: register@youthcommunityservice.org.

If you are an organization who wants to let Paly know about service opportunities, YCS maintains an opportunity database on its website; please contact Isaac Braunstein

If you are a senior have additional questions about HelperHelper or transcript hours, please contact p alycommunityservice@gmail.com.

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