President’s Volunteer Service Awards (PVSA)

Compass is an approved Certifying Organization (CO) for the President’s Volunteer Service Awards (PVSA). The PVSA is a prestigious national honor offered in recognition of volunteer commitment. Established in 2003, this award honors individuals and groups who have demonstrated a sustained commitment to volunteer service over the course of 12 months. Service hours can be accumulated on a variety of projects throughout the year.

The PVSA is awarded annually at the Bronze, Silver, and Gold levels. For many, earning one or more awards will be a noteworthy honor on future college or scholarship applications.

Volunteer Levels

• Getting Started
  Register to Begin
  Homeschooled students in the northern Virginia (Fairfax, Loudoun, Prince William, Arlington, Stafford, and Faquier counties, or Alexandria, Falls Church, Manassas, and Manassas Park citities) or registered Compass students in VA, DC, MD, or WV who are volunteering and accumulating hours toward a PVSA award should register with us to let us know your volunteer work is in progress. This will allow Compass to contact volunteers with important reminders about the application deadline and award ceremony.

  Cost
  There is no cost for Compass students to register as a candidate for the award. There is no cost for the award package (certificate and medal) for non-Compass students, but there is a $15.00 facility/activity fee for non-Compass students. A Compass student is someone who was registered for Compass classes at some time during the award year (September 1 – August 31) and is a registered student at the time of the Awards Ceremony (October). The facility/activity fee for non-Compass students is not refundable if the student enrolls later in the year.
  

• Eligibility
  Citizenship
  Recognized volunteers must be US citizens or lawfully admitted permanent residents of the US.

  Age
  Homeschooled students ages 6 through 18 can earn this award. A student must be age 6 by August 31 (in other words, the student may have completed some activities while 5 years old, but must turn 6 by the end of the award cycle). A student cannot turn 19 before March 1 of the award year (in other words, the student was 18 for at least 6 months and 1 day, or “more than half”, of the award year.)

  Homeschool Status
  PVSA candidates certified by Compass must be full time homeschooled students for the award year that the volunteer work was performed (September 1 through August 31) and during the term when the award is presented (early October). Along with their completed Volunteer Activity Log, all candidates will be asked to submit their county’s homeschool acknowledgement letter demonstrating homeschool status by August 31 each year. If a student was homeschooled and performed volunteer work during the award year, but then enrolls in school, he/she is not eligible to received the award through Compass and should ask his/her new school to serve as the certifying agency or enroll in Volunteer Scholars.

  Compass Enrollment
  Enrolled Compass students from VA, MD, DC, and WV may apply for this award. Other homeschooled students from the northern Virginia* community can apply for this award even if they are not Compass students. Homeschooled students who do not attend Compass and/or live in the northern Virginia area, or students from any other educational setting (public, private, parochial, virtual, etc) can earn this award through the Volunteer Scholars program. (*Northern Virginia shall include Fairfax, Loudoun, Prince William and Arlington counties, and the cities of Alexandria, Manassas Park and Falls Church.)

  Aging Up a Level Mid-Year
  PVSA has different award levels by age with increasing expectations as participants get older. There is a change in required hours between ages 10 and 11 (kids to teen) and between ages 15 and 16 (teen to young adult). For example, a 10-year-old needs to complete only 50 hours for a Silver Award, but an 11-year-old is expected to complete 75 hours for Silver. If a child is the younger age for more than a half-year, his/her hours will be submitted at the lower age. If the child ages up with more than a half year of the award year remaining, he/she will be counted at the new, older age. In other words, if a student turns 11 (or 16) on or after March 1, he/she may be counted as age 10 (or 15) for the award year. The Compass administrator will make this designation during the hours review.

• Tracking & Submitting Volunteer Hours

  Tracking Hours
  Volunteers must track and itemize all of their volunteer hours on the Volunteer Activity Log which is fillable pdf form.
  -Contact information at the top of the form must be completed.
  -Individual volunteer tasks must be typed into the form.
  -Users may print out a hard copy of the log to track volunteer work by hand throughout the year, but the final version submitted to Compass must be typed into the cells of the form.
  -Users should save the pdf form to their own computer/device and add their own names as extension such as, “Volunteer Activity Log- John Doe” before entering data.
  -Users may not alter or reformat the form as it is set-up to import into the PVSA system by Compass.
  -Please note that the hours entered on each page will not fill or total automatically. The applicant is excepted to subtotal the hours recorded on each page and enter the total number of hours worked towards the award on the first page. All calculations of hours will be verified.
  -The Volunteer Activity Log must be returned to Compass by e-mail a pdf attachment.
  -Compass cannot accept Google Sheets, Excel, or other electronic formats, nor can Compass accept faxed, photographed, scanned, or handwritten copies of the log.

  Online Hours Tracking
  Starting in summer 2019, PVSA abolished its online system for tracking volunteers’ hours. Candidates must now use the Compass fillable pdf Volunteer Activity Log for submitting hours.
  Itemized Details
  Volunteer hours worked must be entered in the Volunteer Activity Log in discrete entries noting the date worked, hours worked, activity description, and beneficiary organization.
  As an example, instead of entering “12 hours- Boy Scouts”, our reviewers must be able to see specifics like:
  – March 3, 2019,  Park Clean-Up,  Boy Scouts,  3.0 hours.
  – April 4, 2019,  Canned Food Collection,  Reston Food Bank,  4.0 hours
  – May 5, 2019,  Built Birdhouses,  Meadowlark Gardens,  5.0 hours

  Submitting Hours
  All volunteer work for the award year must be entered and submitted on the Volunteer Activity Log by 11:59 by on August 31.
  

• Compass Program Requirements
  Award Year
  The Compass award year shall run from September 1 through August 31 each year. The Volunteer Activity Log must be submitted via e-mail to awards@compassclasses.com by 11:59 pm on August 31, no exceptions. Hours entered after than time cannot be counted for the closing year, nor can they be carried forward to the next year.

  Review/Acceptance of Hours
  Compass will review all service hour entries and maintains the right to contact beneficiary organizations to verify volunteer work completed. Compass may reject any entries that are incorrectly documented, unsubstantiated, or that are of an excluded type of participation.

  Award Ceremony
  An awards ceremony will be held at 4:00 pm on the fourth Wednesday afternoon in October each year for the recipients of the prior year’s awards. Attendance at the award ceremony is mandatory and shall be a condition of receiving your award. Check the date and plan for it in your schedule if you are applying for an award. Awards will not be given to students who do not show up for the ceremony regardless of reason.

  Cost of Awards
  Compass will order and pay for all awards. Compass will furnish the medallion package (customized parchment certificate and medal on neck ribbon) for all students.

• What Counts as Volunteer Service?
  Type of Community Service
  Volunteers may perform any type of community service that they wish. Major service categories suggested by PVSA include: education, healthy futures, environmental stewardship, veterans and military families, economic opportunity, disaster services, and more.

  Double Dipping/Double Counting Service Hours
  Community service hours counted towards the PVSA do not need to be uniquely earned for this award. Hours completed through or required by Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Eta Sigma Alpha, church, or similar civic or community initiatives, may be applied towards a PVSA award, even if they are performed towards earning another award or recognition.

  Self-Organized Work
  Community service work does not need to be done through an organization or established program. Self-initiated service work such as an individual’s or family’s commitment to cleaning up a park or stream, can be counted for this award. Compass may ask for additional details or documentation on self-initiated projects.
  

• What Does Not Count as Volunteer Service?
  Court-Ordered Service
  Volunteer service mandated by a court cannot be counted.

  Unused/Rollover Hours
  Volunteer hours must be completed in the 12 month award period. Unused hours may not be “rolled over” to the next award period. The exception is the Lifetime Achievement Award which is cumulative across multiple years.

  Paid Work
  Volunteers must not receive any compensation or stipend for the community service hours.

  Monetary/In-Kind Donations
  Monetary or in-kind donations to an organization do not have a volunteer hour equivalency and cannot be counted.

  Unpaid Student Work
  Not all unpaid student work can be counted as volunteer, community service work. Unpaid work in a for-profit place of business, such as an office or medical practice, is considered an internship experience and shall not count as volunteer work because the student’s effort would benefit a business rather than a charitable effort. 

  Teaching Assistants/Junior Coaches/Counselor in Training (Dance, Martial Arts, Camps, etc.) A student who serves as a junior or assistant instructor, coach, or camp counselor may be able to count time spent teaching classes to younger students, even if the studio/camp/sports organization is a for-profit business if there is no in-kind compensation. The student coach/teaching assistant/counselor must not receive any benefits such as free or reduced tuition/class fees, belt testing, or other no-cost benefits. Any student who submits volunteer instructor/coach hours of this type as volunteer work must also submit a letter from the studio/camp signed by the owner or head coach stating that the volunteer did not receive any of the benefits list above or similar in exchange for his/her volunteer work.

  Work for Family
  Unpaid work for family is usually not counted as volunteer work. Mowing the lawn for your parents, babysitting for a family member, or washing a car for your grandparents is considered a contribution to your own family and not volunteer work that benefits the community. Work in the family’s business is not usually considered volunteer work. If you believe that there should be an exception, contact the PVSA administrator through Compass.

  Live-In Exchange Student
  Activities and interactions with an exchange student who is living in your home is generally not considered volunteer work. Eating, running errands, taking trips, going on outings, and doing ordinary activities of daily life when accompanied by an exchange student does not transform such activities into a volunteer role (since you would likely be doing these things anyway, without an exchange student.)

  Fostering Animals
  Activities related to the direct care and keeping of foster animals, such as feeding, watering, bathing, exercising, grooming, accompanying to vet appointments, or cleaning up after the animal can count toward the PVSA award. Activities related to adoption services for foster animals, such as creating promotions or working at adoption events, can be counted. However, if the applicant is sheltering a foster animal(s) at home, he/she cannot count ALL hours that the animal is sheltered or housed as volunteer time. For example, fostering an animal for 7 days does not yield 168 hours of volunteer time because not all hours of the day are devoted to the care and keeping of the animal.

  Marches, Rallies, Protests
  Participation in marches, rallies, or protests shall not count as volunteer hours.

  Religious Instruction, Worship Service
  Performing religious instruction, conducting a worship service, and proselytizing shall not count as volunteer hours. For example, volunteering as Sunday school or religious education assistant or work as an alter boy may not be counted. Community service done through a place of worship such as food drives, meals for the homeless, soup kitchens, clothing collections, etc., can be counted.

  Attendance/Participation in an Organization
  A student’s attendance at regular meetings or participation in events of an organization that he/she is a member of, such as a Girl Scout meeting or 4H field trip, are part of being a member of that organization and do not count as volunteer hours. However, service projects or charitable work done through one of these organizations, such as a youth group visit to a nursing home or Boy Scouts cleaning up a park, can be counted.

  Fundraising
  Hours spent on fundraising activities for a member’s own organization cannot be counted as service. For example, time spent earning money through the sale of Boy Scout popcorn, Girl scout cookies, honor society pizza day, etc., cannot be counted as community service. However, efforts expended to raise money for another charitable organization, such as a carwash or lemonade stand to raise funds for the animal shelter or cancer society, could be counted.

Download the Volunteer Activity Log

Interested in the PVSA but not eligible through Compass? Consider the Volunteer Scholars program.

For more information or questions on the PVSA, contact the Compass awards administrator at awards@compassclasses.com.