For high schooler Kiamehr Metanat, volunteering means more than completing a school credit.
Metanat, an Earl Haig Secondary School student, partnered up with two of his friends Sebastian and Thomas, to create a resource for other high school students looking to fulfill their volunteer credit requirements — 40 hours to graduate.
He realized that volunteering in Toronto has its barriers. Whether it’s age constraints, tight deadlines or other specific requirements, he recognized a gap when it came to finding volunteer opportunities for his age group. So, Metanat and his friends conducted surveys to understand what the community needs and rallied support from faculty, other students and even members of government.
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They built a platform called Volunteer North York, which has almost 100 student sign-ups, and 31 organizations since the site was published in September.
We sat down with him to chat about motivation, growth and next steps for the initiative.
What’s been the greatest source of motivation and perseverance for you as you built the platform?
All of us always wanted to become influential in our community in a good way. We wanted to use our skills to solve a problem, so we decided to team up with each other. We felt motivated after doing the community survey because it showed a need.
When we found that this was like an actual problem that people have, it really motivated us because we wanted to solve it. This is kind of like a thing that all three of us share.
We received a lot of support from professors and teachers. It was really amazing.
What’s your biggest piece of advice for somebody that doesn’t have experience or skills in creating a website or this kind of resource or database?
Sometimes it’s good just jumping straight into a thing. I started the project the day after I came up with the idea.
What I would’ve done, or what I would tell another person to do, is first watch a bunch of videos. There are lectures online that you can watch, and just like, observe them, take notes and then, put it all in a Google Doc.
Find inspirations or samples of what you want to do, and slowly make a doc as detailed as you possibly can. And don’t rush the process, because if you rush it like I did, you’re gonna go through like around 120 different versions, and it’s really frustrating.
Tell me something that you’ve learned about yourself in the process of making this website.
Well, I actually learned a lot about myself. I actually gained two new hobbies like website design and business.
It kind of changed my life course because it actually changed what I think I want to do in the future, because I didn’t really know what I was gonna do. After doing this, I said, okay, I have this interest, I have these skills. Why don’t I make this my future? Like, why don’t I use these skills to actually help the community even more in the future?
What are your plans essentially to continue the database and continue to add organizations as you continue to grow up too?
I want to get in connection with different school boards. That’s my biggest goal because there’s a platform called My Blueprint, and it’s a really big platform. It was made by two university students, and now every school in Toronto uses it. So that’s my goal to become like a tool that students use to find launching opportunities.
How can people continue to support your work personally or support Volunteer North York?
The biggest way someone could support me is by telling volunteer organizations to join the database so people can locate opportunities. Other than that, volunteering in general.
This interview was edited for length and clarity.
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