Understand your family's commitment
What the yearly commitment is, why it's counted per family, and where the number comes from — the foundation for everything else in this section.
Many schools ask each family to contribute a set amount of service to the community every year — hours volunteered, events worked, sometimes dollars in place of time. Lumicura’s job is to make that commitment visible and painless to track, for you and for the school.
Your school may call this something else. “Service Hours,” “Volunteer Credit,” “Family Commitment” — different names, same feature. These docs say “service hours” and “commitment.”
The commitment is per family
Lumicura counts the commitment at the family level, not per parent. Whoever in your family does the volunteering, it lands on the same shared tally. One parent works the auction, the other works concessions — same bucket, and grandparents’ help usually counts too (your school decides who may earn on your family’s behalf).
Where your number comes from
Your school sets the commitment: how much, what counts toward it, and any special cases (discounts for single-parent households, different amounts for new families, and so on). Lumicura displays the target and does the arithmetic — it never decides what you owe.
Many schools offer a choice of plans — different mixes of hours and dollars (“20 hours,” “10 hours + $200,” “buyout”). If yours does, you’ll be asked to choose your plan at the start of the year, and your target follows the plan you picked. You can revisit it from the dashboard — the Change plan button while selection is open, or Plan details after it closes. Miss the deadline? The school assigns a default and the office can still move you — just ask.
Split households
If your family’s parents live at two addresses, your school can flag the family as a split household and divide the commitment between the two households — each with its own share, its own view, and even its own plan. How the math works (and what each household can and can’t see) has its own guide: How split households share the commitment.
Watching it through the year
Your family’s balance — target, earned so far, remaining — lives on the commitment dashboard, updated as credit lands. That’s the next article: Check your hours and balance.