LEOMINSTER - President-elect Barack Obama rode a spirit of civic engagement among young people to victory, harnessing a hunger for service and belonging that was sweeping across the nation's high schools, college campuses, and online communities. But that hunger had been building long before Obama launched his campaign, and it is poised to continue growing long after he has left the White House. By many accounts, the interest and participation in public service, volunteerism, and social entrepreneurship among youth - from middle-schoolers to graduates with advanced degrees - have risen dramatically over the last decade. Today's teenagers and young adults, thanks to encouragement from their baby boomer parents, an Internet revolution that makes the world feel smaller every day, and a growing number of service and nonprofit-career preparation programs at colleges, are far more likely than their predecessors to seek out ways to give back and to shape the world they will inherit. "Volunteerism is becoming a culture," said Sejal Hathi, a 17-year-old high school senior from Fremont, Calif., who founded an organization, Girls Helping Girls, to empower females around the world. This service ethic is evident nationwide - inspiring middle-school students to raise arts scholarship money for their needy peers; driving college students to craft programs combating youth violence and promoting small loans to entrepreneurs; and moving 20- and 30-somethings to create internationally focused nonprofit organizations. The trend is difficult to precisely measure, as volunteerism and public service take so many forms, and there are some data suggesting otherwise. But there are signs everywhere of increased participation and interest among youth. American teenagers today are 100 percent more likely to volunteer than teenagers in the last few decades, federal research shows. A record 68 percent of K-12 schools offer or recognize service opportunities for students, according to a study by the Corporation for National and Community Service, a government agency, which also reports a 69 percent increase in applications to the AmeriCorps program over the last four years. A survey by UCLA's Higher Education Research Institute found that two-thirds of students entering college in 2006 felt that helping others in need was essential or very important, the highest rate in 26 years. One widely cited visionary is Wendy Kopp, who 20 years ago founded Teach For America, which sends top college graduates to teach in disadvantaged schools. Early on, she said, people laughed at her vision."What I ran into everywhere was the reaction that, this is a great idea, but it will never work because college students would never want to do it," she said. They're not laughing anymore. In 2000, Teach For America was averaging 3,000 to 4,000 applications a year. This academic year, the organization received 25,000, and it's on pace to beat that figure by 50 percent next year.