Community service is an invaluable experience that everyone should have. Through community service, you can help yourself by helping others. You learn your strengths and weaknesses, in addition to everything you learn about others and the world. Through my sixty hours of service with Colleges Against Cancer, I have learned a lot. Community service with CAC has been extremely beneficial. I feel like it's helped me better understand other people's struggles and how even a little help can make a huge difference. Thousands of people are diagnosed with cancer every year. This disease radically changes the lives of not only those diagnosed, but also those who care for them. The CAC works very hard to raise awareness of this fact and help raise funds for research to cure cancer. It is truly inspiring and beneficial to know that even your small efforts can make a huge difference in the lives of these people. Another benefit of being a CAC member was being able to participate in something much bigger than yourself, Relay For Life. Being part of something like this helps put everything into perspective. This allows you to re-evaluate any struggles you might be going through to see how small they may be in the grand scheme of things. Being a part of all the Relay For Life events since arriving in Elmira has been a truly humbling experience and I think it's a major benefit of donating your time to such an organization. Working with CAC over the past two years has made me realize that this is the kind of thing I would like to dedicate my time to as often as possible in the future. Increasing cancer awareness and funding cancer research is something that seems impossible. Volunteers do most of the fundraising. As a member of the Relay for Life committee for this year's Relay, I can attest to the fact that without all the volunteers and their efforts leading up to and especially on the day off, Relay for Life would not take place. They do a lot of work for the organization and really make a difference. As I enter Elmira College, I wonder what sixty hours of community service could possibly do for me. However, now that I have completed these hours, I can honestly say that it was one of the most enlightening character development experiences I have had. We don't realize the good we can do until we have a chance to see it. Relay for Life and CAC showed me that I could make a difference. Community service is worthwhile and should be done by everyone at some point in their lives..