The Volunteers 3 PEER JURY A lot of communities have adopted a peer jury program. These programs are often run through local villages and townships in conjunction with the police department. Peer jury programs give “discretion to police officers and departments to refer cases, typically for local ordinance or statute vio- lations, and always for first-time offenders ages 12–18 who had not fin- ished high school” (Fieldman 2017). More often than not, the sentencing for peer jury cases involves community service because the “crime” is rel- atively minor. Breaking curfew is one that we saw regularly at my previ- ous library. Libraries are fantastic partners for these students because teen librarians understand that most of these teens are good kids who made bad choices or were in the wrong place at the wrong time. In my experi- ence, a lot of the teens that need hours are not current library users. We can combine the much coveted “how do I get new teens in to the library” with the “how do we create lifelong library user” questions. If you were having a really bad day and dreading having to do community service and you got to the library and were treated with dignity and respect, how would you feel? We often say as a profession that the hardest part is get- ting them in the building. Now they’re there! Sometimes without a peer jury, teens are still assigned court-ordered community service. The same ideas apply. A rose by any other name and all that. There are a number of religious organizations that require service before advancing with their schooling. While the numbers and time requirements vary, the underlying tone in all of these institutions is volunteering your time in the service of others. Once again, you have the potential for both one-on-one and group projects. Do you want to do a drive or something similar but know that you cannot handle it all yourself? This is exactly the kind of project that goes hand in hand with ecclesiastical service. They can do the logistics while you provide the space and sign off on the hours. More than likely if there is one teen in your community who needs the hours, there are probably more teens who need the same, and they can all work together. For more prolonged service, there are youth groups that have service as part of their underlying mission all year long. There is no reason why these groups cannot come to the library to volunteer. People don’t always think of libraries in terms of community engagement. These are the same people who think it must be so nice to sit and read all day. They don’t say that to you because they’re trying to undermine what you do they just really have no idea how much libraries have changed and evolved. When they think