About 120 high school students at Steinbach Christian School are learning the value of volunteerism and recently participated in their annual Work Day.

Teacher Curt Plett says students across Manitoba are able to earn an extra high school credit after completing 110 hours of volunteer work, but at SCS, it's a mandatory requirement for graduation.

"This sort of goes hand-in-hand with [how] we encourage [the students] to offer their services to the community. They can ask in their neighbourhood or their neighbours if they can do jobs for them. That's kind of a value of volunteer labour in your community, I think it's a good value."

Plett says work day is usually directed towards physical labour jobs such as spring and yard clean up.

"Recently there was a student who talked about seeing an entire parking lot full of dust and gravel that they had to sweep up and how it was overwhelming at the beginning, but once it was all said and done, they had this fantastic sense of accomplishment. I just talked to a young man, also in Grade 10, he said he had an awesome day. He said, 'all day I was splitting wood and smelling smoke and the weather was fantastic, I had a great day.'"

He adds work day is also a fundraiser for the school and the donations help fund different school aspects including gym enhancements and transportation upgrades.

Plett says for young people to experience a day of physical labour where, at the end of the day their muscles are sore, isn't a bad thing.