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SCHOOL-BASED COMMUNITY SERVICE PROGRAMS What Parents Need to Know
By Melanie G. Snyder

School-based community service programs are springing up all over the country with an estimated 10.6 million students nationwide, or 38 percent of students between ages 12 and 18 participating. Many schools have incorporated community service into graduation requirements or class curriculum in social studies or humanities.

Research has shown that youth involvement in community service can lead to improvements in academic achievement and self-esteem, according to “Youth Helping America,” a recent report from the Corporation for National & Community Service, the federal agency that manages AmeriCorps, and Learn and Serve America. According to Youth Service America, other research has shown that youth who volunteer just one hour or more a week are 50 percent less likely to abuse drugs, alcohol, cigarettes or engage in other destructive behavior. Teens themselves report that the benefits they receive from volunteering include developing leadership skills and learning to respect others.

In order to be effective and to help students to experience these benefits, school-based community service programs must be well-structured. 

“Parents can make a huge difference in the success of their children’s community service experience,” says Margie Shepherd, teacher, long-time activist and founder of a regional school-based Citizenship Project in Virginia. First, she says, parents should make sure they understand the requirements of the school’s program including due dates, number of hours and what documentation students are required to submit showing the community service work they’ve done. Ask what will be done in school and what students need to do outside of school hours. Find out what discussions will take place in school about the community service work students are doing.

Once you understand the school’s requirements, talk with your children about why community service is important. Marian Wright Edelman calls volunteering “our rent for living on earth.” Help them to understand the right reasons for engaging in community service, not “because I have to turn in a log sheet that says I did 10 hours”.

“Help your children find issues they’re passionate about,” says Shepherd. “They’ll stay with a cause that is meaningful to them, they’ll want to work to make a difference, and ‘numbers of hours on the log sheet’ won’t be an issue.” Help your children to identify their own strengths and talents to apply to a cause. There are many ways and levels at which youth can make a difference. Children can work independently or with groups of friends, on projects they design or for local agencies. “Empower your children to develop their own ideas about what they’d like to do,” says Shepherd.

If your children want to volunteer with an agency that addresses certain issues, they can search for local volunteer opportunities through an online searchable database of volunteer opportunities around the country from the Points of Light Foundation (1-800-volunteer.org). Be aware that some agencies are not able to provide volunteering opportunities for younger children due to legal, safety and other issues.

Many agencies welcome families volunteering together. Even in agencies that may not accept younger volunteers individually, parents may be able to volunteer with their children. Family volunteering is an excellent opportunity for parents to model good volunteer behavior. It also provides rich opportunities for families to learn together about community issues and engage in meaningful family discussion about these issues.

Whether children volunteer with you or on their own, take time to discuss the volunteer work with them. What are they learning? What do they see that could be different? What new understanding have they gained? Look for opportunities to help them make connections between their volunteer work and current events, social and economic conditions, the law and other factors that play a role in the community need.

If you’re engaged in additional volunteer work on your own, talk with your children about what you do. Even if they can’t participate, they’ll learn from your positive role model. The authors of Common Fire: Leading Lives of Commitment in a Complex World found that children who see the caring activity of a ‘public parent’—one who is publicly active in a manner that conveys concern and care for the wider community—in turn develop a sense of responsibility and commitment to the greater good in their own lives.

Finally, do all you can to support your children’s teachers in their efforts to implement high-quality community service programs. Share information on service opportunities with teachers. Offer to assist with coordination and logistics if your circumstances allow. Model and promote positive attitudes toward community service in your own home. Most importantly, encourage your children in their efforts to make a difference through service so that one day they might say, as Marian Wright Edelman did, “I have always believed that I could help change the world, because I have been lucky to have adults around me who did.”

Community Service & Service-Learning: What’s the Difference?

School-based community-service programs are not the same as “service-learning,” a hot new educational trend. Service-learning:

• links service to classroom curriculum

• includes structured classroom time for planning the service project

• includes time for students to discuss and reflect upon the service activities

Three national evaluations of the impact of service-learning on civic attitudes and behaviors of youth found that service-learning helps students develop personal, civic and social responsibility, and learn critical thinking, communication, teamwork, mathematical reasoning, problem solving, public speaking, vocational, computer, scientific method, research and analysis skills.

Many schools that start with community service programs ultimately move to full-fledged service-learning.

Examples

Community Service: Eighth graders clean up trash at a local nature preserve.

Service-Learning: Eighth graders study animal habitats and learn how commercial development destroys natural resources and can lead to animal extinction. They are especially concerned about the worldwide impacts of destruction of tropical rainforests. They find a Peruvian organization called ANIA that builds schools to educate Peruvian children about the importance of protecting rainforests. The students organize a fundraiser that yields enough money for ANIA to build two schools. The Peruvian children later send photos of themselves and their new schools to the students, along with necklaces they made from seeds from the rainforest.

Community Service: Fifth graders serve a meal at a homeless shelter.

Service-Learning: Representatives from a local shelter visit the classroom to discuss causes and impacts of homelessness. Then students and teacher tour the city, sitting and lying down in the places where the homeless sleep. Students work in teams to clean up these public areas, then write poems and essays about what they imagine it would be like to sleep on the street, hungry, cold and alone. They organize a canned food drive for the homeless shelter with a new understanding of who will use the food.

Melanie G. Snyder has written for over 50 parenting, education and children’s publications across North America. For more information on her upcoming book due out in 2009, visit MelanieGSnyder.com.