Beyond Learn and Serve Funding: How can we help you maintain Service-Learning momentum in Michigan?

Written by: Learn and Serve – Michigan Team

In a post from March 2, 2011, we wrote a blog entitled “Why National Service Funding is Important.” This blog post explained H.R. 1, legislation that would make deep cuts in government spending for Fiscal Year 2011, and how it would affect the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS). In early April, congress announced the actual $38 billion in cuts that would be enacted for Fiscal Year 2011. CNCS had to reduce its budget by $74.6 million for Fiscal Year 2011. This cut included a $40 million in reduction of Learn and Serve America funding; a deal that eliminated Learn and Serve America funding entirely.

What is the impact of loss of Learn and Serve of America funding in Michigan?

The immediate result of this cut is that the Michigan Community Service Commission, in partnership with the Michigan Department of Education, will not be able to grant nearly half a million dollars in federal funds for its Learn and Serve – Michigan school-based programs like it did in 2010-2011. More than 2,500 teachers and 50,000 students will have fewer resources with which they can meaningfully engage in their community and classroom. Sadly, the infrastructure for service-learning across this country will be compromised.

It isn’t all bad news in Michigan. Across this state there are programs that began with Learn and Serve funds that now have service-learning integrated into the culture and habits of the schools. Through deliberate sustainability planning we’ve worked together to put into place a teaching practice that is so much more than a program. Teachers use service-learning in the classroom because they know it engages students. Community agencies partner with students not just because of the benefits for the students but because they know the partnership is an investment in the civic health of their community. School administrators support the practice because they know it works. In thousands of classrooms across Michigan, service-learning lives and breathes and will be in place well beyond the loss of this federal funding.

The Michigan Community Service Commission remains committed to the growth of service-learning. Meaningful youth engagement is central to our work and to the vitality of our state. While the resources available will be different, we want to work with you to create the next iteration of service-learning. Here is our question to you:

What can we do to help you sustain service-learning without this funding? What are the critical elements of the program that we need to sustain? How can we work together to maintain our momentum in the field? We need your help. We encourage you to comment and respond, as we would love to hear any feedback that you can provide!

For more information on Learn and Serve – Michigan, click here.

Please contact salasa@michigan.gov if you have any questions about Learn and Serve – Michigan.

Michigan 2011 GYSD Projects & Efforts

Written by: Ellen King, Learn and Serve – Michigan AmeriCorps*VISTA

Global Youth Service Day officially starts this Friday, April 15 and many projects are planned across the state.

The Michigan Community Service Commission, The LEAGUE Michigan, and Youth Service America distributed $11,000 in mini-grant funds to support 2011 Global Youth Service Day projects across the state this April. Thirty-five organizations from across Michigan were selected through a peer review process to receive funds to coordinate service projects that address education, economic opportunity, supporting veterans and military families, health, clean energy and environmental stewardship, disaster preparedness, and public safety.

I helped coordinate the mini-grant review process, and I want to emphasize the importance we placed on incorporating youth voice in both the application and review process. One of the requirements of the mini-grant was that it must have been written by a youth who planned to participate in the planning and implementation of the project. We also wanted to ensure that because the mini-grants were written by youth, the mini-grant recipients would be youth chosen and reviewed.

I realized throughout this process that Global Youth Service Day really is all about mobilizing youth to improve their communities each day. Even though my year of service started in late November 2010, I have already seen the benefits of youth voice, and youth service participation first hand. Each time I started reading a new mini-grant application I became excited and truly inspired by today’s youth, and the value they will be giving to their communities. I look forward to serving alongside many youth in the coming weeks because each time I do, I feel like they are giving me more than I am giving them.

Below is a description highlighting some of our mini-grant recipient’s projects:

Two Service-Learning Youth Council (SLYC) members are coordinating a clean-up day at their local ski area, Hickory Hills, in Traverse City. Volunteers from both high schools in the area will repaint and clean the lodge, repair tow rope shacks, and collect garbage. This project is tentatively set for the week of April 18.

In Lansing, the Allen Neighborhood Center, in collaboration with the Power of We, The Boys and Girls Club of Lansing, The Garden Project, and NorthWest Initiative will construct two “Really Raised” Garden Beds. This project will be held on April 16, and volunteers will construct two accessible raised garden beds to accommodate those who are differently-abled at Hunter Park Garden House.

Calumet High School students, a Learn and Serve Michigan grantee district, will work to improve the Copper Country Artists Association’s gallery space as well as connect with senior artists from the Association. The students will compile a book of interviews, photographs, and art work during the week of April 11, which they will donate to the Calumet Public Library. Calumet is located in the Keweenaw Peninsula in the Upper Peninsula.

Youth members of College Prep International in Detroit will provide a workshop on financial aid and financial literacy for college bound students. This workshop is targeted for high school students in Southwest Detroit on Saturday, April 16.

Also on Saturday, April 16, HandsOn Battle Creek – in collaboration with the LEAGUE Michigan, Food Bank of South Central Michigan, and several community school clubs – will host a Fresh Food Initiative to get food into low-income neighborhoods. Students will separate fruits and vegetables into bags to be divided among families in the area.

So far, more than 85 projects have been registered in Michigan on the official Global Youth Service Day Project Map, www.gysd.org. The project map features projects that could be in your area, along with contact information. Check it out and join one of the many projects happening across the state! And don’t forget to register your Global Youth Service Day project at www.gysd.org and by clicking on register in the toolbar at the top.

For more information about the specific mini-grant funded projects, visit http://www.michigan.gov/mcsc/0,1607,7-137-6118_11733-253407--,00.html.

Youth Service: A Panel Perspective

Written by: Learn and Serve – Michigan Team

The Michigan Community Service Commission has a strong commitment to youth service in the state and works hard to propel the efforts of young people and their impact on a larger scale. For many years they've benefitted from youth commissioners serving on their  board in an effort to capture the voice of Michigan's young people.
Three of those individuals; two current MCSC youth commissioners and one former youth commissioner, recently sat down together to discuss their commitment to service and the impact it's had on them and others. Please read on to learn more about Ella Kate Wagner, Breannah Alexander, and Kari Pardoe - three leaders in Michigan's youth service movement.

Please introduce yourselves and explain your current involvement with the Michigan Community Service Commission.

- Ella Kate Wagner: This is my first year as a commissioner, but I've worked with the MCSC a lot. I was on the Service Learning Youth Council for five years. I am currently a freshman at Michigan State University studying elementary education.
- Kari Pardoe: I was a commissioner with the MCSC for nine years, starting my freshman year of college and I stayed on after that. I currently work at the Michigan Nonprofit Association as the Director of The LEAGUE Michigan.
- Breannah Alexander: This is the first year of my second term with the MCSC. My first term as a commissioner started in 2007. I'm currently a senior at Grand Valley State University studying public administration and criminal justice.

Why is youth service so important to you?

- Kari: For me, it's important for a couple of reasons. I wouldn't be where I am today without it. As a young person I thought I wanted to go into business and then I got really involved in the youth service movement - from grantmaking to philanthropy - and it totally changed and shaped me into who I am today. As a result, I changed my major in college and totally reevaluated what I wanted to do. Because of my experience, I want to provide those same opportunities to youth throughout the state of Michigan to help them get a taste for what [service] is and how they can integrate it into their lives and continue participating into adulthood.
- Breannah: The idea of youth service is important to me because I come from a family of public servants. My dad was a firefighter and my mom was a nurse, so of course the idea of helping someone else was important. Too often, your community doesn't succeed without its citizens helping those who can't help themselves. Youth service became a special issue for me when I joined the Youth Advisory Council (YAC), which is affiliated with community foundations that grant-makes to the community for youth-driven programs, but also does direct service as well. Prior to that I had never considered what an impact service has on a community until I realized what a group of 20 people could do as a collective unit to have a lasting impact.

How valuable do you believe service will be in the coming years?

- Kari: I think service is going to be invaluable to Michigan, especially as we try to move through these trying times we have and know will continue to have. Service and volunteerism are vital and crucial to the success and turnaround. We need to realize that Michigan is our home and we all need to give back in some way. More young people must get involved to be life-long leaders in this field so our nonprofits and foundations will continue to succeed.
- Breannah: I definitely agree that service will be crucial for Michigan. The engagement piece of young people is so important as our generations get older we'll need new people to pick up where they left off. 
- Ella Kate: As time progresses and with budget cuts, Michigan is in some tough times right now - as a result, service will grow. I encourage everyone to get out there and serve with the nonprofits. I work with nonprofits in Lansing that are dying because they just don't have the people to help them get things done - and all they need are volunteers!

To continue reading this transcript, please visit the MCSC’s website: http://www.michigan.gov/mcsc/0,1607,7-137-6113-253421--,00.html