2010 Semester of Service – How will you get involved?

Guest Posting By: Robyn Stegman, Learn & Serve AmeriCorps*VISTA & Elyse Walter, MCSC Communication Specialist

Recently, at the 2009-2010 Learn and Serve – Michigan Grantee Meeting, we were able to share the latest announcements affecting service-learning practitioners. Below is an account of those announcements, several of which we feel interest the field at large!

2010 Semester of Service
The Semester of Service concept was created to facilitate creative thinking this school year around service-learning. The “official” launch of the 2010 Semester of Service is Monday, January 18, 2010 (also the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service) and “concludes” April 23-25, 2010 (also the weekend of Global Youth Service Day). We encourage you to engage your students and your school during the 2010 Semester of Service in the following ways:

• Learn & Serve Challenge
  The 3^rd Annual National Learn & Serve Challenge will place students on the frontlines of efforts to employ innovative solutions to rebuilding and renewing their communities for the entire 2009-2010 school year. The Challenge kicked on October 5 – 11. We encourage you to “Challenge” yourself this coming year through the quality of your service-learning practice and by sharing your stories. Please don’t look at the National Learn & Serve Challenge as an additional effort we would like you to pursue. Instead, consider it a supportive piece to your overall service-learning efforts and an opportunity to draw national attention to the great work you are accomplishing.
• 2010 Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service
  This annual national day of service launches the official “2010 Semester of Service.” Consider planning a simple service project for your students and/or community – particularly on Monday, January 18, 2010 – as a great way to jumpstart your school’s second semester and to reaffirm your commitment to service-learning this school year. Resources are available at www.mlkday.gov.
• 2010 Global Youth Service Day
  Global Youth Service Day is an international service event occurring in more than 100 countries this April 23 – 25, 2010. On GYSD, children and youth address the world’s most critical issues by partnering with families, schools, community and faith-based organizations, businesses, and government. The Michigan Community Service Commission has been selected as a Lead Agency for the 2010 GYSD and we hope to make our efforts statewide. As a Lead Agency we will be creating and leading a 2010 Michigan GYSD Coalition, engaging the media, engaging elected officials, promoting GYSD, and encouraging the posting of service projects. Resources are available at www.gysd.org.

We know this is a lot of information to take in – but let us leave you with three simple steps to get involved as part of the 2010 Semester of Service:

1. Commit to the Semester of Service by accepting the “Challenge.” You can do so by visiting www.learnandservechallenge.org.
2. Do something! Whether that is planning an event for MLK Day or GYSD – or just engaging your students and schools in service-learning in some way!
3. Tell us what you did. We want you to share your service-learning plan for the 2009-2010 school year with us. Please look for a form in the near future asking you about your efforts.

Two additional announcements…

Service Learning Youth Council (SLYC)
The Service Learning Youth Council is an opportunity for your school’s young people to get involved in service-learning at the state level. SLYC members are expected to be ambassadors for their community by bring their voice to our meetings and spreading the message of service-learning in their home schools. This year SLYC members will work together to create statewide events around the 2010 Semester of Service as well as join in leadership trainings and discussions on youth activism and voice. This year we will kick off the 2009-2010 SLYC with a retreat on December 5 and 6, 2009. We would love to see your wonderful students there. SLYC applications are due Friday, November 13, 2009. If you have any questions contact Robyn Stegman at stegmanr@michigan.gov

2010 Learn and Serve – Michigan Outstanding Service Learning Awards
Nominate your outstanding students, teachers, programs, and administrators for the 2010 Learn and Serve – Michigan Outstanding Service Learning Awards. These awards go to service-learning innovators and super stars who constantly strive toward excellence in service-learning. There are four categories of awards: the Administrator Award is for an administrator who has served as a model of leadership for service-learning; the Innovative Program Award is for a service-learning program that demonstrates innovation and excellence; the Student Award goes to a student who has served as a model of leadership; and the Teacher/Practitioner Award is presented to a teacher who implemented their own project and helps nurture others to expand service-learning. The deadline to nominate someone for these awards is November 30, 2009. The application can be found by clicking here.

Spotlight on Youth Service: Ionia County Youth Advisory Committee

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

This past week I took a trip to Ionia to take a look at their service-learning programs. Among the many great things Ionia has done, I was most stunned by the work of their youth committee. The Ionia County Youth Advisory Committee (YAC) was originally in charge of giving out youth-related grants but has since blossomed into a power for change. Here is a look of some of the things the Ionia County YAC is up to:

• Project Ignition – YAC was featured in the paper last week for winning a State Farm Project Ignition Grant of $2,000! YAC was the first group in the state to get involved with Project Ignition which is an initiative by the National Youth Leadership Council to help promote teen driver safety. YAC was one of 25 schools in the country to receive the grant and will continue to compete to be part of the top 10 who receive $5,000, or perhaps become the number one school to receive $10,000 for their program this year.
• Facebook – YAC has created a Facebook Fan Page as part of their Project Ignition work to promote their work. To keep updated on the latest YAC events, become a fan at: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ionia-MI/Project-Ignition/157171590987. 
• Ionia County YAC Forum – YAC students are hard at work on their youth forum which will cover topics ranging from the achievement gap to leadership training to teen driver safety. The YAC students have some great ideas including one session with an ER doctor to talk about his experiences seeing the results of teen driver accidents and another session where they will show and discuss a popular YouTube video.

If you have a group of young people you would like to highlight in an upcoming blog, please email me, Robyn Stegman, at stegmanr@michigan.gov.

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!

Michigan Youth Pledge to Serve at 2009 Service and Leadership Camp

Nearly 125 youth from across the state made a personal pledge to service at the 2009 Service and Leadership Camp, held July 24, 25, and 26 in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan. The annual camp is sponsored by The LEAGUE, the Michigan Community Service Commission, and Learn and Serve – Michigan and aims to join students from across the state to learn leadership skills they can use to advocate for service in their schools.

This year’s event, “Super Servers: Taking on the Challenge of Service,” featured activities such as teambuilding, a Challenge Day program, service projects, and workshops for teachers and students. The Challenge Day program engaged the students in a highly experiential workshop that provided tools and life skills to encourage an environment of acceptance, love, and respect. The students partnered with “Kids Against Hunger,” a nonprofit organization that packages and ships highly nutritious, life-saving meals to starving and malnourished children in developing countries and the United States.  Camp participants helped pack meals to be distributed in their own communities and globally.

A special recognition of service helped round out the weekend’s activities as 12 youth in attendance received the President’s Volunteer Service Award. All the recognized youth have devoted at least 50 hours to volunteer service in the past year, qualifying them for the prestigious award which recognizes individuals, families, and groups with lapel pins, recognition certificates, and a letter signed by President Obama. Michigan Community Service Commission Board Member Breannah Alexander presented the following recipients:

Carson City-Crystal Area Schools
Amber Craig

Detroit Service-Learning Academy
Cinque Littleton

Honey Creek Community Schools
Fin Seely
Ella Steiger

Pathfinder School
Dorothy Buening
Suzy Mitchell

Romulus Community Schools
Elea’ele Buford
Alex Carter
Deshar Dinkins
D’Mario Ellis
Victoria Mangham
Sierra Smith

As mentioned earlier, all of the students made a personal pledge to service while attending this year’s camp. Below is a sampling of those pledges:

I pledge to care more, to get up off my butt, and to do something.

I pledge to recycle more than I do now.

I pledge to help maintain a clean and safe community and to always be kind and caring towards others.

I pledge to stop kids teasing each other.

I pledge to tell my teacher that I want to do a penny drive. Then to give the money to the animal shelter.

I pledge to do five service projects with a good cause.

I pledge to help the Earth, the homeless, and the elderly. To plant a tree, to pick up trash, whatever it takes to be of service.

I pledge to get my family involved in more community service activities.

I pledge to save energy by turning off lights.

I pledge to be a better person.

Morgan from Clarkston - SLYC Member

Hi! My name is Morgan and I am a student at Clarkston Junior High School in Clarkston, Michigan. I have had an amazing time being a part of the Service Learning Youth Council and I look forward to aiding my community further in the years to come.

This year I have had the pleasure of taking part in a wonderful service project at my school. The service project was run by two science teachers in the building. The goal of the service project was to educate four 5th grade classes about the importance of helping our Earth and how we can achieve that objective.

To accomplish our goal, each science teacher and their four classes created an Alphabet Coloring Book. Each alphabet letter page included a fact about helping the Earth and a picture the 5th graders could color. Student groups researched interesting facts about the following five topics for the book: energy conservation, water conservation, human impact on land and water resources, recycling, and alternative energy resources. Then, with their comprehension of one of those topics, they were able to generate fun information to go in the coloring books.

Not only did we create the coloring books, we also took the coloring books to a local elementary school. We were able to present to the 5th graders and inform them about the Earth. I know this experience was a success because the 5th graders told us they learned a lot and also had fun. Both grades benefitted from this service project!