A Fourways parent has turned a challenge facing high school teenagers into a platform that has recorded almost 740 000 hours of verified social impact.

Sarah Welton-Blake started Community Hours in 2016 to connect mostly high school learners with age-appropriate and engaging opportunities to make a difference. As a parent, Welton-Blake saw how difficult it could be for young people to navigate volunteering requirements linked to life orientation and build a reliable record of their service. “We began thinking about how much easier this could be if there was one place where young people could find credible opportunities, log their hours, have them verified and build an accurate record of their contribution and impact throughout high school,” she said.

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Community Hours independently verifies the hours recorded by students, helping them build what Welton-Blake calls verified social CVs.

Today, the organisation has recorded almost 740 000 hours of verified volunteer engagement — equivalent to more than 84 years of service.

For Welton-Blake, however, the numbers are only part of the story. “The more we explored volunteerism, the more I realised the need went far beyond fulfilling a school requirement,” she said. “There are so many organisations doing meaningful work that need volunteers, and so many young people and families who genuinely want to contribute but simply don’t know where to begin.

“I have learned that not every act of kindness needs to be heroic. Sometimes care shows up simply, quietly and gently. An hour given, a helping hand, something made, a place cleaned, an animal cared for, a story told, or an experience shared.”

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That belief has shaped Community Hours into something broader than a platform for school learners. Welton-Blake wants volunteering to be accessible across generations and believes people should not wait until they are older or financially secure before contributing. “Nobody should feel that they have to wait until they are older, wiser, have a career or have money before they can make a difference,” she said.

For Welton-Blake, the future of Community Hours is about making volunteering a natural part of everyday life, rather than something people do simply to add another line to a CV. “Perhaps my greatest hope is that Community Hours helps people move through life asking not only, ‘What can I get?’, but also, ‘How can I help?’.”

After nearly 10 years of connecting people with causes, Sarah’s message remains simple: every act of kindness counts.

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