HOPE ACADEMY received a $1,000 award to launch a service-learning project that addresses [service issue]. Funded by State Farm Companies Foundation and allocated by Youth Service America (YSA), the project launched on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service, January 18, and culminated on Global Youth Service Day, April 23-25, the largest service event in the world.

To read the complete article, visit http://www.rsdla.net/Media/NoticesAll/NoticeSingle/10-05-08/Hope_Academy....

South Lake Tahoe youth will join thousands of communities across the country and throughout the world in celebrating Global Youth Service Day. Established in 1988, GYSD is the largest service event in the world and is now celebrated in over 100 countries.

To read the complete article, visit http://www.tahoedailytribune.com/article/20100423/NEWS/100429870.

Youth volunteerism joins a global community as after-school students from Southwest Elementary prepare a community garden for Global Youth Service Day on Friday, April 23. Students are assisted by State Farm staff and AmeriCorps members from Harris County Department of Education’s Cooperative for After-School Enrichment.

To download the PDF, visit http://www.thecypresstimes.com/printFriendlyPDF/articlePDF/29483.pdf.

West Virginia Campus Compact recognized 10 colleges and universities and a faculty member from Fairmont State University for service leadership at its first statewide conference at the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine in Lewisburg. Dr. Brian Noland, Chancellor of the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission, recognized and thanked the schools for their leadership and for the community service their students are performing in their communities.

Chancellor Noland said the West Virginia Campus Compact is a strategic initiative of the WVHEPC because community service and service learning are valuable components in our students’ overall education. Service puts theory into action, benefitting both the student and the community. Continued partnerships with communities can move the state forward in a positive and progressive way.

“Between April 2009 to April 2010, the number of WVCC schools grew by 65 percent. This growth indicates our state’s schools value their communities and their commitment is deep and strong. Evidence of that commitment is that WVCC schools service to communities last year is valued at $82 billion,” Noland said.

Schools recognized for their participation in the WVCC Martin Luther King Day Service Mini-Grant program were Bluefield State College, Concord University, Marshall University, Potomac State College, WV Northern Community College, West Virginia University and WVU-Parkersburg. The program involved more than 400 student volunteers statewide.

April 28, 2010

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Six Illinois Wesleyan University students and two alumni have been selected for 25 Under 25 in McLean County, as part of Global Youth Service Day.

Global Youth Service Day is an annual campaign that celebrates and mobilizes the millions of children and youth who improve their communities each day. This year’s celebration was held last week at Illinois State University, which is one of the local sponsors of the day along with Illinois Wesleyan. Support for the program also comes from Youth Service America and State Farm Companies Foundation.

The 25 Under 25 in McLean County program honors young people who not only demonstrate service to the community, but also possess an interest in further developing leadership skills. All honorees are residents of McLean County or are currently enrolled at a school in McLean County. Those honored from Illinois Wesleyan were:

Erin Bradley, a senior double major in history and Hispanic studies from Normal, who was as nominated by the Hispanic Families Work Group;

Brittini Gray, a junior sociology major from Dolton, Ill., who was nominated by the Western Bloomington Revitalization Project;

Paige Maynard, a junior double major in economics and sociology from Granite City, Ill., who was nominated by the Downtown Bloomington Association for her work on the Farmer’s Market;

Starla Southward, a senior sociology major from Round Lake Beach, Ill, who was nominated by the YWCA for her service on the organization’s board;

Christopher Unger, a senior international studies from Phoenix, Ariz., who is the president of the campus chapter of the national, co-ed service fraternity Alpha Phi Omega (APO). He was nominated by a fellow Illinois Wesleyan student, who is also a part of APO.

Karin Unruh, a sophomore a double major in sociology and educational studies from Algonquin, Ill., who was nominated by the Youth Advisory Board of State Farm.

Date of Project: January – July 2010
Project Ready, Urban League of Greater Hartford has collaborated with the American Red Cross in organizing a final cullminating project, which is a Blood Drive on Saturday, May 8th at a local YMCA.
Our Academic Goal is to engage students in civic responsibility, public speaking, leadership and how to convey valuable information that impacts their community residents and our neighbors.Our service learning Community Need is based on research and data American Red Cross of the Connecticut office has provided. Our community has minimal invovlement in blood drives especially with many community memebers requireing specific blood types, lack of specific blood matches and specific blood transfusions. Our youth want to engage 1st time Blood donors and increase the education to the African American and North End community residents about the importance of donating blood. They have engaged in several certification training, education and leadership training in preparation to go out into the community and local community agencies and outreach, agencies such as YMCA, Community Health Services, Urban League of Greater Hartford, Local businesses and schools.

Help Us Help Others Blood Drive is scheduled for Satruday, May 8th from 8am-1pm at the Wilson-Gray YMCA, 444 Albany Ave, Hartford, CT 06103. Refreshments and food will be provided in the canteen area. We will also be raffling a bike from our Hot Spot Bike Shop (2nd hand and repaired), gift cards to local restaurants and stores as a way to thank peopel for donating.

On Friday April 23, 2010 the SAVE US club memebrs, parents, classmates and community leaders gathered at the Scott County park to show their committment to the prevention of violence in our community. We shared hotdogs, chips, cookies and drinks with all particpants, supplied by the SAVE US clubs funds which included grant from Do Something. Particpants displayed posters from the poster contest, inclduing posters against child abuse, dating violence, bullying, hate crimes, domestic violence, and suicide. Parents and community leaders spoke about violence and its impact on the qulaity of life in our community and how to Stand up, Speak out amd Stop it in the campaign against violence. Particpants enjoyed the music and fun until 10 PM.

Youth volunteerism joins a global community as after-school students from Southwest Elementary prepare a community garden for Global Youth Service Day on Friday, April 23. Students are assisted by State Farm staff and AmeriCorps members from Harris County Department of Education’s Cooperative for After-School Enrichment.

To read the complete article, visit http://www.thecypresstimes.com/article/News/Your_News/CASE_AFTERSCHOOL_S...

Teens from the Philadelphia area will spend the day clearing invasive vines, planting trees and wildflowers, building stairs, digging a pond, and removing trash from the Cobbs Creek Community Environmental Education Center. After doing hands on work, there will be reflection workshops including drama, sketching, poetry, composting and journal making.

We will be celebrating our 2nd Annual Global Youth Day Celebration at Long Elementary School in Dearborn, Michigan on 3100 Westwood Street. We will be cleaning around the school, cleaning out the garden and the playground areas, and planting a tree.

Visalia Police Activities League,Youth Leadership Program was created for “at-risk” young people in our community in hopes of bringing about change in their attitudes and building self esteem so they will not choose gangs and drugs and instead choose a productive path for their future.

This year’s class in made up of 13 youth between the ages of 14 and 17 and 70% of them are part of the Foster Care program. The group's community project for the 2010 Global Youth Services Day is "Loose Change for Change" and proceeds will go to help the Homeless organizations in our community. (Namely: The Visalia Rescue Mission, The Visalia Soup Kitchen and The Battered Women’s Shelter.)

The group will distribute donation containers to 30 area businesses and organizations and loose “change” will be collected during the months of March and April 2010. The project will culminate with a “Walk for Change” where the Youth Leadership youth and their friends and family will solicit sponsors and walk a 5 mile route that ends at a local park. The Walk for Change will take place on May 1, 2010 and will be accompanied by a barbeque and entertainment at the end of the walk.

Program in Celebration of services and renewed committment to helping others.

Acknowledgement of community participation in recent fund raising events for Haiti Relief. Presentation of $1,000 donation to Red Cross and recognition of elementary students' dedication in raising funds.

"How Can I Help?" Role Playing presentation by high school students to elementary students suggesting ways in which students can improve the community: environmental stewardship through recycling efforts,planting trees and flowers,sharing our garden produce, and helping neighbors, helping friends.

Wrap-up with curriculum-aligned tutorial math games led by high school students, celebrating having fun and helping others.

A follow-up "How Have I Helped?" is planned in May with continued encouragement to serve our community.

The Scott River Watershed, a major tributary to the Klamath River drainage system, is experiencing habitat degradation related to agricultural diversion of stream flows, removal of riparian vegetation due to overgrazing and water quality problems related to runoff from recent intensive logging practices. Current information provided by the Department of Fish and Game and the American Fisheries Society indicates that the salmon population in the Scott River is at a high risk of loss. There had been a strong run of salmon and steelhead in the Scott River, including its tributaries, until recently. Etna High School, in the middle of Scott Valley, is a major component of this agricultural community. We have the unique opportunity to involve students in riparian restoration projects while educating them on the survival requirements and the importance of salmon to our region. A group of 25 high school students will work to organize, publicize, implement 5 separate watershed / ripararian restoration projects, to conclude with a Watershed Fair / Celebration. Middle and Elementary schools will be involved with each project.

YOuth from the Chatham Unit of the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Danville area will be advocating for safe driving practices at the local Old Dutch Supermarket. The youth have been testing the effects of texting and driving using a driving video game. They have created a brochure detailing their findings and encouraging all drivers to drive safely and never text while driving.

The Girl Scouts Spirit of NE outreach sites in Omaha and Lincoln are doing book drives for various organizations that need books, the girls at each sites decided where to donate the books that they received and set goals for the number of books they would like to get. They created a campaign and contests between grades and students vs. staff to raise books. They stressed the importance of reading on the future of America in the areas of crime rates, literacry rates, college and graduation rates, as well as family time, and positive use of free time for young people. Some of the books are going to the Latina Resource Center, Homeless Shelters, Daycares for underserved Families and other Family Resource Centers in communities that girls deemed as underserved. The girls will be delivering the books to the sites themselves.

This event brings all of the Sobrante Park and Brookfield neighborhood partners who work with Higher Ground Neighborhood Development Corp. programs to bring a living lab to the campus through the establishment of a comprehensive garden and nutrition program serving the elementary school and surrounding community. All year students at both programs have been learning about the raw produce that combat the four chronic killers of African American and Latino communities in Oakland, CA. The quadruple threats are high blood pressure, diabetes, stroke, and depression. Children learned to plant, harvest, and prepare these foods.

High school students who are members of The KNOWN Youth Anti-Drug Coalition will plan alternate youth activities during Spring Break for their classmates in an effort to reduce underage binge drinking among 14-25 year olds. Daily and nightly activities will include bowling, outdoor and indoor laser tag, a three-on-three basketball tournament, indoor bike & skatepark, movie night, a disc golf tournament, and flag football & tailgate party. The week will culminate with an all-day concert with giveaways, air guitar & karaoke contests, free food, pick-up baskeball, volleyball & cornhole games, free video & arcade games, and featuring six local bands and a hip hop breakdancing group from Nashville.
Students will work together to plan and market the event, and also garner community support by soliciting donations from local businesses and requesting support from leaders in the community. The students will record in journal entries how the project has benefitted them.
The project information will be posted on the youth coalition's website at www.beaKNOWbody.com and on The KNOWN's Facebook page.
Students and community leaders will gather a few weeks later on Global Youth Service Day for a Celebration Day of their Clean Break accomplishments and the many youth who signed Pledge Cards throughout the week.

iCare is the mutil-faceted GYSD service project led by over 230 youth and young adults in the Nortg Central Texas area. iCare will help people in the community through several diffent types of service-leraning projects.

- Fix my Clunker; youth alongside certified mechanics will conduct minor repairs and oil changes for people who otherwise would not be able to get an oil change. The minor car repair are completed when the car owner purchases the parts and we handle the labor.

- Hands across Lancaster; is a service project that will extend a helping hand to the 7 area nursing homes where youth can participate and volunteer to read, sit, or just provide a helping hand to senior citizens in those nursing homes.

- Heartbeat for Health; through a network with the American Heart Association
Obesity prevention services young people will distribute healthy eating infomration to impact and change the eating habit of the at-risk youth in the community. This project will effect over 14,000 children and youth in the community.

- Feed My Sheep; is a hunger-buster coalition where children, youth, and families can get food basket from products and donations collected over the past few months for GYSD.

22 second grade students from Galesburg-Augusta Primary school will continue an innovative, inquiry based class project that will conclude with two service learning events. The students have excelled in undertaking a class project to learn about their village’s human history through interviews and explorations of people and places, the area’s natural history including activities relating to animals from the past and present, estimating oak age by tree ring counting and size measurements, and research of a rare wetland floodplain environment on the school’s property. These activities have been centered on required curriculum topics, and age appropriate skill mastery for language arts, social studies, math, and science. Specific tasks to master these skills include journal writing, interviewing people, library research, graph construction, counting, measuring, and studies of plant growth. These lessons have been taught in the classroom, as well as, through supplemental activities at home with their families. Our class would like to extend the current project by allowing the students to research personal topics of interest for greater depth of study, upgrade this current project to other classes and grades in the winter and spring of 2010, and explore the themes of environmental stewardship and conservation that form the foundation of the current project. We plan on accomplishing these goals by having an open-house on January 18 where the students will present what they have learned about the Galesburg’s human and natural history to other classes, parents, and community members. We will use the open house event to help recruit interest for a clean-up and native plant transplanting event in the school’s courtyard and nature trail in May. These two areas are used as outdoor classrooms by the entire school, and the trail is accessible to the community.

High school students reaching out to their peers to end drunk driving!
On Day 1, students will be pulled out of class by an officer who explains to the class that this person represents someone who was killed by drunk driving. The participant has their face painted black and is separated from all of their family and friends for 24 hours.
Participants and peer leaders go on an overnight retreat to learn more about the issue and hear from people who have been affected. They plan an activity to do with their class when they return and do a candlelit reflection ceremony.
On Day 2, parents and students are reunited. Participants each go to a different classroom and present to their peers, asking them to make the right choice and not mix alcohol and driving. The entire school will get to hear from this group of courageous students. In the afternoon, our 3 county commissioners will join the group to hear about their experience, as well as their other projects addressing drunk driving and underage binge drinking. In the evening, parents and community will come together to share a meal and discuss what we all can do to make Eureka a safe and healthy place for everyone to grow up.
In addition, students are running an ad in the local paper thanking businesses that do a great job of not selling alcohol to teens.

Students will present several months of data-informed public speeches that have convinced New Orleans students to value their educations and stay in school. Younger students have been inspired by the example Hope Academy 8th graders have led and we are excited to present our results and influence important individuals like school leaders and principals!

The Lawrence County Community Action Partnership is partnering with a local high school to connect students with housing needs that exist in this community. Students will be painting, cleaning, and doing small repairs for Patches Place and the Sankey Youth Center (2 local nonprofit organizations).

Kindergarten students at Weston High School in Jonesboro, LA will plant flower baskets to celebrate Earth Day 2010. These flower baskets will be delivered to the elderly at the Jackson Parish Council on Aging luncheon and to the local nursing homes.

BBC in Bloom is a Semester of Service project. This began with a service event on MLK Day. Florida International University, Biscayne Bay Campus has approximately 40 acres that have either been restored or is in the process of being restored to wetland and mangrove ecosystems. On MLK Day a group of FIU students came out to help remove invasive species that had begun to encroach in areas already restored. Additionally, the students removed trash that had washed up on the shore. Work in this area continued through the semester on Community Work Days, which are the first Saturday of every month. Projects continued throughout the semester to increase the native vegetation on campus. This included the students enrolled in the First Year Experience course researching native plants, selecting plants, and planting a butterfly garden on campus. The students maintained it throughout the semester that it became successfully established. In addition the Gardening Group meets once month to tend to the other butterfly gardens throughout out campus. This group is comprised of students from the Environmental Psychology classes and Global Environment and Society, staff, and faculty. The group weeded, watered, and transplanted plants to create beautiful gardens. In addition the ninth and tenth graders at the neighboring high school, Alonzo and Tracy Mourning Senior High, made regular visits to the greenhouse to plant and maintain native and vegetable plants in the greenhouse. Additionally, the seventh graders from the adjacent David Lawrence K-8 Center came to the greenhouse to learn about native plants and plant the seeds of native plants that are going to be used in future butterfly gardens. The University celebrated Earth Week in March and during this time we had students make pledges to live greener lifestyles and we taught them about the importance of gardening and handed out small pots and seeds.

Spring symbolizes a new start, growth, and rejuvenation. After long winter months residents of the Twin Cities are coming out of their homes to celebrate the new season by preparing and cleaning up their yards, gardens, and neighborhoods.

City Year Washington, DC and Comcast will be partnering on Saturday April 24 for their annual Comcast Cares and Global Youth Service Day project. More than 500 volunteers will be beautifying Ballou Senior High School in SouthEast Washington, DC. We will be creating gardens, landscaping, building benches and picnic tables, painting murals on outdoor walls and inside the school and painting inspirational quotes throughout the hallways in the school.

The City of Hampton in cooperation with The Volunteer Center of the Virginia Peninsula will be providing CERT Training for Teens ages 16 - 25. Volunteers are invited to attend an informational meeting to discuss the upcoming training.

As a recipient of the National Urban League/State Farm Insurance Service Learning Grant, Project Ready participants will learn about healthy cooking, food preparation and storage using scientific, environmental and technological approaches. On April 24, 2010, students will share their lessons with patrons of the Marie Wilkinson Food Pantry and other Aurora residents through cooking demonstrations and workshops which will discuss how choosing the right foods (even canned goods), preparing and cooking them properly contributes to a more healthy, sustainable, and eco-friendly lifestyle.

Linear Park is a unique historic nature preserve over two miles long and 56+ acres nestled within the City of Palm Coast. Students have been learning all year about the mesic hardwood hammock ecosystem located in this park. The park intertwines around businesses and main thoroughfares and is listed as a site along the Great Florida Birding Trail. St. Joe's Canal runs through the park out into the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway. It exhibits the true beauty of Old Florida.

Cultural Diversity is the result of globalization and formalization of cultures and civilizations and it is some kind of value and the heritage of Humanity.