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Ashley May has helped build houses in the slums of Puerto Rico, worked with underprivileged youths in Wyoming, volunteered at a crisis pregnancy center, worked the phones on behalf of a political candidate and helped teach at a local elementary school.
"The more you give, I think the more you get back," says May, 18.
So much for the stereotype of the self-absorbed teenager.
While May, who lives in Bradenton, does an unusual amount of volunteer work, she's in good company. An increasing number of teenagers are doing community service these days, in Florida and throughout the nation.
Some just want to do good deeds. But others are "volunteering" because it's a requirement - for membership in the National Honor Society, for a Bright Futures scholarship, even to graduate from some high schools.
And many students are hoping their selflessness will catch the eyes of college admissions officers. Volunteer work has become almost mandatory for acceptance into a good university.
"I would say it's gone from virtually nonexistent to commonplace," says John Barnhill, director of admissions and records at Florida State University. He says applicants who haven't done at least some community service stand out, and not in a good way.
Student surveys support his observation.
In 1989, about 66 percent of college freshmen nationwide said they had done volunteer work during their senior year of high school, according to the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA.
Last year, 83 percent of the freshmen said they had done volunteer work.
There are a number of theories about why community service is on the upswing with Generation Y.
Some educators think the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks jolted youngsters into thinking beyond themselves.
"I have a sense that there is a renewed spirit toward community service," said Gail Crosby, supervisor of community and interagency collaboration for Hillsborough County schools.
Others think today's kids are just different from their parents.
"There's a huge altruistic component to it," says Connie Boyle, a guidance counselor at St. Petersburg High School. "It may begin as a duty, but these kids certainly embrace their projects."
The most popular forms of community service include mentoring younger students, serving meals at soup kitchens and working at hospice or animal shelters or on cleanup patrols.
Mandi Austin, who will be a sophomore this fall at Northside Christian School in St. Petersburg, volunteers about 12 hours a week at the SPCA of Pinellas County. She walks the dogs, cleans up after them and plays with them so they can be socialized and adopted.
"I'm kind of getting two birds with one stone," says Austin, 16, who also has volunteered with the Pinellas Association for Retarded Children. "I get to do something I really love and also get community service hours for school."
Austin's use of volunteerism to meet school requirements has become increasingly common in Florida, where community service has been woven into many academic programs.
National Honor Society members are required to do volunteer work, as are students enrolled in any of Florida's 40 International Baccalaureate programs. Students who qualify for the top Bright Futures scholarship get all their tuition and fees paid for by the state - after they perform at least 75 hours of volunteer work.
Some students can't even get a high school diploma without doing community service. Both the Broward and the Miami-Dade school districts have made volunteerism a graduation requirement.
The same is true in a few Pinellas County schools, including Palm Harbor University High School and Boca Ciega High, which have magnet programs for students interested in medical careers.
Students in those programs must complete 200 hours of community service before they can earn a diploma.
Palm Harbor's most recent graduating class logged 27,990 hours of volunteer time over four years.
That means the average student did 33 more hours than required, said Patricia Ballance, the assistant principal in charge of the program.
But getting out of high school is only one reason for the surge in volunteerism. Another is getting into college.
When it comes to the fine art of resume padding, there are few tools more useful than community service.
That doesn't worry FSU's Barnhill, who says students who volunteer for selfish reasons often grow to love what they're doing. And students who are simply gaming the admissions system are still helping fill needs in their communities, he says.
Judy Hingle, director for professional development for the National Association for College Admission Counseling, says it takes an extraordinary amount of dedication to catch the attention of an admissions officer.
"Even from the most competitive colleges, it's not that you must have some of everything," she says. "They're looking for things where you have used your interest and passion, whether it's working in a field or caring for your family or working on some kind of a volunteer project."
Nicole Sacca, a recent graduate of Tampa Bay Technical High School in Hillsborough County, was so dedicated to volunteer work that it earned her a scholarship from FSU. She tutored elementary students during each of the past three school years and started a pen-pal program with third- and fourth-graders to help them improve their reading and writing.
She acknowledges that some students do volunteer work to enhance their resume. "But they keep going back," says Sacca, 18.
May, the Manatee High School graduate, plans to continue volunteering through college and beyond. She also received a scholarship from FSU for her community service work, but says the money wasn't what motivated her.
"I actually function better the more that I have on my plate. The more of a schedule I have, the better I do," says May, who also served as captain of the varsity cheerleading squad, ran track and field and graduated in the top 10 percent of her class.
"I'm sure a lot of students are in it for the resume sort of thing, but I know a lot of kids realize it's lots of fun, too. So many people make it out to be a bothersome thing, but it's not. You have fun with it."