At Highlands Ranch High School, community service is more than just a graduation requirement—it’s part of the school’s culture. This year alone, students have contributed more than 8,000 hours of service, demonstrating an impressive commitment to their community.
Behind the scenes, that level of engagement requires strong organization and clear tracking systems. That’s where Helper Helper has made a significant difference.
We spoke with Angela Yearous, Library Assistant and National Honor Society sponsor, about how the school manages student service hours and why their team can’t imagine running their program without Helper Helper.
From Paper Forms to a Centralized Platform
Before adopting Helper Helper, the school relied on paper forms to track service hours.
According to Yearous, the transition to a digital platform transformed the process.
“We were using paper forms. Since we’ve started using Helper Helper, so many things have improved. It’s much easier to keep track of students’ community service hours, we have one central location to promote opportunities, and it saves tons of time tracking hours.”
Today, the platform provides a single hub for service opportunities, reporting, and communication with students, helping both staff and students stay organized.
Saving Staff Time and Reducing Administrative Work
Managing hundreds of students’ service logs manually can be time-consuming. With Helper Helper, the process has become dramatically more efficient.
“Helper Helper makes the process 50–70% faster than our previous manual process.”
Instead of collecting, reviewing, and filing paper forms, staff can now run reports, track hours instantly, and communicate with students directly through the platform.
This efficiency frees up time to focus on what matters most—helping students find meaningful opportunities to serve.
Supporting Graduation and Honor Society Requirements
Like many districts, Highlands Ranch High School has specific community service expectations.
Students must complete 20 hours of community service to graduate, and members of National Honor Society must complete 20 hours each year, including 10 hours of service within the school.
Helper Helper allows the school to track all of these requirements in one place.
“The biggest benefit is being able to keep track of our students’ required community service hours—not just graduation requirements but also various honor society requirements as well.”
The school’s Infinite Campus integration helps ensure that student records and reporting stay aligned with district systems.
A Simpler Experience for Students
Students benefit from the platform as well.
Yearous notes that the app’s simplicity has made it easy for students to log their service hours and stay accountable.
“The app is very simple to use. I’ve never had a student have trouble with it. It also makes students accountable for their hours and there’s no question about how many hours they’ve completed.”
With a clear digital record of service activity, students always know where they stand relative to their graduation or honor society requirements.
Quincy Ewing at Habitat Painting Siding
Verifying Service and Celebrating Impact
While photos aren’t a major component of the school’s workflow, they can still serve an important role when needed.
They are useful when a student needs to prove they were helping at an event.
These optional verification tools help maintain accountability while keeping the logging process simple for students. Helper Helper offers QR code verification, Coordinator Check-In Links/ Kiosks, and email/text verification.
Clear Progress Tracking with Goals and Reports
Helper Helper’s reporting tools also make it easy for staff to monitor student progress.
“I find goals extremely useful to see at a quick glance how far along a student is in completing their graduation requirements and their National Honor Society requirements.”
Staff regularly use reporting fields like Opportunity Cause and Opportunity Category to track service types and generate monthly reports for programs such as National Honor Society.
More Time to Focus on Service
For Highlands Ranch High School, the biggest impact of Helper Helper has been the ability to spend less time on paperwork and more time creating meaningful service opportunities.
“Helper Helper has streamlined our community service program and made it easier for both students and administration. We’ve saved tons of administration time and, as a result, been able to focus on offering more community service opportunities for our students. I can’t imagine not using HH at our school.”
Building a Culture of Service
With thousands of service hours completed each year and a streamlined system supporting both staff and students, Highlands Ranch High School continues to build a strong culture of community engagement.
Their experience shows how the right platform can transform service tracking—from a manual administrative burden into a tool that empowers students to make a difference. It also helps that other nonprofits in the Highlands Ranch area use Helper Helper and all Douglas County High Schools engage with the platform.