NJ High School Volunteers

July 8, 2026

8 Scholarships for High School Students Who Volunteer

Promoting Volunteerism
8 Scholarships for High School Students Who Volunteer

Nobody told me that volunteering could pay for college.

I found out from a girl at a regional service event who had won $1,500 from an organization I had never heard of, for a project she was already doing.

She had filled out a form that the rest of us never opened.

Most service scholarships receive far fewer applications than academic ones, because students assume they need to have founded something. Several of these want a paragraph and a reportback.

The 8 worth your time

Award amounts and windows change, so verify each one on its own site before you apply.

8 service scholarships open to high school students

  1. Coca-Cola Scholars. $20,000 each to 150 students nationally. Applications open August 3 and close September 30 at 5pm Eastern for the class of 2027. Minimum 3.0 GPA. This is the most competitive one on the list, and service is weighted alongside leadership and academics. Apply the week it opens, because the application is long.

  2. Gloria Barron Prize for Young Heroes. $10,000 to winners, open to ages 8 through 18. Pre-application due March 15, full application due April 15 at 5pm Mountain Time, winners announced in September. This one wants a project you led, with a measurable impact. Founding something matters here.

  3. DoSomething "Offline Mode." Up to $1,500, open to ages 13 through 25. No essay, no GPA requirement, no recommendation letters. You complete a campaign and report back. The lowest-effort real money on this list.

  4. DoSomething "Street Sweep." $1,000 for organizing a community cleanup and submitting a reportback. If you already run cleanups, this is money for work you are doing anyway.

  5. DoSomething "Ripple Effect." $500 for creating a public service announcement. Good fit for students with video, design, or social media skills.

  6. Prudential Emerging Visionaries. Ages 14 through 18. 25 winners at $5,000 each, with one Financial Solutions grand prize adding $10,000, plus a trip to a summit in Newark. Check the current cycle dates directly, because the public eligibility page has shown outdated deadlines.

  7. Bonner Scholars Program. A four-year service scholarship awarded by participating colleges rather than centrally: Berry, Oberlin, Davidson, Maryville, Concord, Lindsey Wilson, and others. Roughly 10 hours a week of service during college. You apply through the college, so research which schools participate before you finalize your college list.

  8. Local and county awards. Your county volunteer center, community foundation, Rotary club, Kiwanis, Elks lodge, and municipal youth commission frequently give $500 to $2,500 service awards with 15 to 40 applicants. The odds here are the best on the entire list, and almost nobody applies. Ask your counselor for the local scholarship list in September.

What service scholarship applications actually ask for

They are different from academic scholarships, and students who write them like academic ones do poorly.

4 things every service scholarship wants

  1. A specific project or commitment, not a total. "I volunteered 300 hours" is a weak answer. "I ran a coat drive that collected 340 coats for 2 Newark shelters over 2 winters" is the answer.

  2. A problem you noticed yourself. Committees respond to students who saw something in their own community and did something about it. Service you were assigned reads differently from service you initiated.

  3. A result with a number in it. People served, pounds collected, students tutored, sites reached, dollars raised. Numbers make the story checkable.

  4. A supervisor who will vouch for you. Most applications ask for a reference from someone who supervised your service. This is the concrete reason to concentrate your hours at 2 organizations rather than scattering them across 9.

The timing that trips people up

Coca-Cola closes September 30, which means the application is due before most seniors have started thinking about scholarships.

Barron Prize has a March pre-application, which means the project needs to already exist by winter of the year you apply.

Local awards usually run January through April with almost no publicity.

Build the list in September of junior year, not senior year. Applying to a service scholarship requires having done the service first, and that is the part with a long lead time.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need to have founded a nonprofit? For Barron Prize, essentially yes. For most others, no. Sustained service in an existing organization qualifies for the majority of these, including all three DoSomething awards.

Are the small local ones worth applying to? They are the best odds you will find. A $1,000 award with 20 applicants beats a $20,000 award with 100,000 applicants on expected value, and the application is usually one page.

Can I apply to several at once? Yes. Write one strong 500 word description of your service and adapt it. The core story stays the same across applications.

What about the President's Volunteer Service Award? The PVSA has been on temporary pause since May 27, 2025 by decision of AmeriCorps. New award orders and new certifying organization applications are not being accepted, and no resume date has been announced. Do not build a plan around it right now.

Do I need a high GPA? Coca-Cola requires 3.0. Most of the others have no GPA requirement at all, which is exactly why students with strong service and average grades should be applying.

Ask for the local list

Email your counselor this week and ask for the school's local scholarship list.

The awards nobody applies to are sitting on it.

Which one on this list matches something you are already doing?

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