Learn and Serve – Michigan’s Resource Blog Author Wins National Award

By: Robyn Stegman, Learn and Serve – Michigan AmeriCorps*VISTA

As I’ve said before, helping with this blog has been one of my favorite parts of my service year. I get to hear so many great stories, ideas, and models of service-learning. So it is my great pleasure to share that June 23’s guest blogger, Janis Klein-Young, won the 2010 Learn and Serve Spirit of Service Award, a national award given to one exemplary Learn and Serve grantee each year. I was in attendance at the “It’s Up To You” Awards Ceremony where the award was given as part of the 2010 National Conference on Volunteering and Service. I was so excited to see this amazing woman get the recognition she deserves.

Janis Klein-Young has taught for 30 years and has built the amazing program at MacArthur South where 98 percent of the students have juvenile justice records. During the awards ceremony they shared the amazing success of her service-learning program. Over time, school attendance of participating students has rose 15 percent. Their GPAs have gone from an average of 1.02 in 2008 to 2.57 in 2009. This past academic year approximately 90 percent of participating 12 graders graduated an unheard of percent for this population.

“Being needed by others helps these young people understand they do have a purpose,” said Philippe Cousteau when he presented the award.

Janis Klein-Young proves the power of service-learning is not just that it can engage students and empower them to reach new heights of academic achievement, but it can also grow them as a person and change their lives for ever. It is a powerful story and I am happy to see it receive national attention.

“Without service-learning my students would become victims of their past. Instead they become victors of their future,” Janis Klein-Young said. Her story proves the life-altering effects of service-learning on some of our country’s most disadvantaged students.

You can watch the entire “It’s Up To You” event and awards ceremony at: http://www.volunteeringandservice.org/.