Toronto high schoolers plan to keep caring beyond COVID

Isabella Pan just wanted to find somewhere to log her 40 hours of required community service. Instead, she ended up leading a student-run organization from Toronto that matches students and others with volunteer opportunities.

She says part of her motivation was somewhat selfish, a desire to make new friends and be involved in something that would get her out of a pandemic-induced rut.

“I didn't really have any time to make friends. I was really swamped with school work, and I was at home all the time. It was just not a great time for me personally,” said Pan, who took over as president of Impact Without Contact earlier this year as co-founders Jenny Wu, Sophie Yang, and Gracelyn Shi headed off to university.

She and the eight other student executives, mostly from around the Greater Toronto Area and Hamilton, are now working to extend the legacy of the organization, which was started soon after COVID-19 hit to help people make an impact while staying safe.

“I think what COVID taught me was endurance and perseverance,” she added. “If you can't change it, you can only really accept it, and you should accept it with a whole heart and with a positive mindset.”

The pandemic made it harder for high school students in Ontario to log the community service hours required to earn their diploma even as the need was heightened after many charities and groups shut down or limited themselves to online-only operations.

Initially a newsletter of volunteer opportunities, Impact Without Contact expanded into a portal matching people with openings and running its own initiatives related to care centres, education and public health.

The organization now has more than 1,000 volunteers registered from over a dozen countries, with many of the opportunities still virtual.

The biggest growth right now is in the care centre work, which has shifted focus from long-term care to homeless shelters and delivered 200 care packages in October, Pan told Canada’s National Observer in a video interview.

The public health component is producing a second season of podcasts that focus on the experiences of health-care workers and others dealing with COVID-19, while it has about 30 student-tutors offering support to those struggling with online learning as well as to some women at a shelter in Turkey.

“For me personally, my education took a huge hit during COVID. I couldn't pay attention to online classes, my marks dropped drastically when we had to move to remote learning,” Pan said, noting this was a common experience among her peers.

Pan, a Grade 11 student at St. Robert Catholic High School, an International Baccalaureate school in Thornhill, north of Toronto, says she expects to do this work until she graduates from high school, and is unsure quite what she wants to do after that.

“I don't want to have to work 100 hours a week as a consultant or at a law firm, even though those are things I am interested in,” she said. “I just don't think that's the kind of life I want to live.

“I want to work somewhere where they contribute positively to society, so I don't feel guilty about what I'm doing every day.”

Morgan Sharp / Local Journalism Initiative / Canada’s National Observer