Learn & Serve Challenge Kick Off in Michigan

Post Guest Authored By: Robyn Stegman, Learn & Serve AmeriCorps*VISTA

“Everyone who is involved in service-learning raise your hands,” Detroit Service-Learning Academy Superintendent Eyla Davis asked her students.

Every student eagerly lifted their hands.

“That should be about everybody,” Eyla said with a smile.

The Detroit Service-Learning Academy is unique in Michigan and is one of Learn and Serve – Michigan’s star grantees. At the academy not only is every student involved in a service-learning project, but so is every faculty and staff. That means everyone from the lunch lady to the kindergartener is teaching and learning in some way through one of their several community projects.

The Detroit Service-Learning Academy was one of many schools who joined Learn and Serve – Michigan for the kick off of the Learn & Serve Challenge. Their students have tackled everything from asthma to park restoration. As part of the Challenge posters of their projects lined the lunch room and showed that their students already possessed an advanced understanding of the assets and problems facing their community and the ways they could help.

The ceremony focused on the seventh and eighth grade choir’s project with Grace Centers of Hope, a homeless shelter near by. Earlier in the year the choir discovered the center needed toiletries and decided to get their school involved in a donation drive. A large cart stood behind the podium with everything from toothpaste to deodorant, and even some food, they collected. There were boxes upon boxes full of donations – to the point that the shelter’s representative doubted all of it would fit in her car.

Paula Kaiser VanDam, Executive Director of the Michigan Community Service Commission, was there to deliver Governor Jennifer M. Granholm’s proclamation declaring the week of October 5, 2009 to be the Learn & Serve Challenge:

Whereas, service-learning is a way of teaching and learning that connects meaningful service to the community with classroom instruction while enriching learning, teaching civic responsibility, and fostering personal growth; and,

Whereas, many great accomplishments have been made by more than 1,300 Michigan teachers who engage their students in service-learning as a method to address community needs and solve real problems; and,

Whereas, more than 35,000 Michigan K-12 students provided more than one million hours of service-learning during the 2008-2009 school year; and,

Whereas, the week of October 5, 2009, has been designated nationally as a week to recognize and honor service-learning efforts through K-12 and higher education facilities;

Now, therefore, be it resolved, that I, Jennifer M. Granholm, governor of the state of Michigan, do hereby proclaim the week of October 5, 2009, Michigan Learn and Serve Challenge Week in Michigan. I encourage all citizens to actively engage in service-learning in their own communities across the state of Michigan.

The students at the Detroit Service-Learning Academy are excellent examples of the service-learning efforts in Michigan. Please view this short video highlighting their celebration as part of the 2009-2010 Learn & Serve Challenge Kick Off! 

During the 2009-2010 school year the Learn & Serve Challenge will go far beyond its traditional kick-off week. Learn and Serve – Michigan is asking all of its grantees to support this initiative throughout the year. Please help promote service-learning so it is no longer the “best kept secret of education.”

Stay tuned to future Michigan Youth Service Blog postings for further information about the 2009-2010 Learn & Serve Challenge and what you can do to get involved!