Scholarship Accruement: What colleges really look for

As I sit and reminisce about my time at Summer Scholars I am repeatedly reminded and see the tangible benefits of helping others. The fellow members of our group bring different dynamics to our group that edify and strengthen the others, and realizing this the importance of volunteering is further impressed upon me. I feel that these attributes are the true desires of the providers of scholarships. Nothing extravagant or too extensive, just the run of the mill American value of service and cooperation.
For the past year and half I have volunteered at Goodwill industries on sunday afternoons for three hours, and with it has come a sense of complacency that I know isn't how the true feeling of helping others is supposed to feel. As I look into this disturbing phenomenon, I am reminded that it is I who made it this way. Not taking my efforts seriously and only doing it out of habit and perfunctory dedication. A remedy to this problem, as I see it, is to find that sensational feeling of belonging and purpose from the first day I volunteered and bringing that sense of duty with me everyday.
I feel as though the people of our genereation are too caught up in the trappings of accruing massive numbers of hours when a few moments of whole-hearted dedication would suffice. This, I gather simply means that quality and not quanitity is more pertinent to scholarship acquirement, and more importantly life as a whole. It is the sensations and feelings we gain from life not necessarily the wealth we amassed. This is where society has gone awry, and shifted our public sentiment.
Through this learning opportunity,this epiphany if you will, I think I would be a welcomed candidate to any scholarship board because of my experience. I have the hours but, also the experience to attest to the healing and rejuvinative powers of volunteering.
At Goodwill cleaning the bathrooms, hanging up and putting away clothes, and taking donations, I have met people that I wouldn't have had the chance to meet otherwise, and by this alone I would reccomend volunteering for the feeling and not for the accolades, because a wise man once said, " You make a living by what you get, but you make a life by what you give".
- Winston Churchhill