Starting in the seventh grade with her initiation into the National Charity League (NCL), freshman Clare Sherman had no idea about all the ways she would fall in love with showing others kindness. 

She was, believe it or not, wary of her mom’s push for this mother-daughter experience.

“At first, I didn’t want to [join the National Charity League], but as time went on, I really started to enjoy it more,” Clare said. “I feel closer to my mom knowing that we can help the community together.”

The NCL is an organization dedicated to creating bonding experiences between moms and their children through humanitarian efforts, something Clare was jokingly not ecstatic to take part in. 

But since joining, togetherness is the essence of the NCL in Clare’s eyes. If it were not for teamwork and fellowship, the work of the organization would never get done. Bringing together her friends to rally behind her beloved causes, Clare has managed to find more than just mother-daughter companionship within this community. And Clare believes this friendliness holds much more weight due to the group’s shared passions.

“I feel better knowing that I have really good friends that help out the community, too,” Clare said.

However, at the heart of all this admiration lies the reason Clare has stuck with the National Charity League in the first place: her love for philanthropy. Through her giving actions and helping hand, she has begun to feel the impact boosting others can impart on you. Over tiring hours assisting organizations such as Family Promise, Kids Food Basket, The Kindness Campaign, and many more, the crown of good karma has fallen upon Clare’s head. 

“I got an award last year for doing over 75 hours of volunteer work at Blandford, [which is] a nature center,” said Clare, who gained much of her experience with this charity through her contributions to their summer camp.

Furthermore, the people who have carried Clare through these victories and helped her in her outreach have primarily been women. Though those that encircle her now have a resounding impact on the family Clare has discovered, there are also the spearheads before her that inspire her to keep going.

When diving into the history of the NCL, Clare sees the faces of women from the past with whom she identifies with their shared ideals being those of altruism and amity. The original NCL—then more simply called The Charity League—began in the mid-1920s, harboring women in the Los Angeles community looking to benefit the American Red Cross. Since then, this program has been led by the heroines that push Clare to keep going and incentivize her to grow humanitarianism’s outreaches. 

“I feel like I’m helping [the] pillar [of these women] grow,” Clare said, “knowing that I’m helping this organization become bigger and more well-known.”

It is a combination of all these favorable factors that has brought Clare to a sort of home in charity work. It is a home she is not prepared to leave anytime soon, one full of inspiring women in the NCL and one full of compassion for her community.

“I definitely want to keep volunteering,” Clare said. “ I feel like it really helps the community, and I want to stick with it.”