Community Service Resource Manual “Paws for a Cause” 2019 - 2020 You tell me and I forget. You teach me and I remember. You involve me and I learn.” -- Ben Franklin TABLE of CONTENTS Community Service Program ............................................................................................................. 3 What and Why is Community Service ............................................................................................... 4 What is NOT Accepted........................................................................................................................ 5 Requirements ...................................................................................................................................... 6 Steps for Completing the Community Service Requirement .......................................................... 7 Reflection Project ............................................................................................................................... 8 How Do you Serve Fairmont Group Service Projects ............................................................................................. 9 Individual Service .................................................................................................................... 10 Get involved! Fairmont Service Clubs ................................................................................... 12 Summer Service Opportunities .............................................................................................. 13 Fairmont Preparatory Academy Placement Areas ............................................................... 14 Ways to Help ............................................................................................................................ 16 Listings of possible Volunteer Organizations & Agencies Children/Youth ......................................................................................................................... 18 Environment ............................................................................................................................. 19 Health/Medical ......................................................................................................................... 20 Hunger/Homelessness ........................................................................................................... 21 Libraries ................................................................................................................................... 22 Miscellaneous .......................................................................................................................... 24 Non-profit Agencies/Organizations ....................................................................................... 25 Senior Services ........................................................................................................................ 27 Do’s and Don’ts of Successful Volunteering .................................................................................. 28 Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ’s) ............................................................................................. 29 Community Service Quiz .................................................................................................................. 32 High School Community Service Form ........................................................................................... 33 2 Community Service Program Overview Purpose The purpose of this program is to help our students to become “exemplary citizens of a global society”. A strong service program will not only help us to create students of character – it will also help our students in the following ways: Work Experience – Volunteer work is an excellent way for a young person to explore fields of interest, learn important workplace skills, and gain experience that will benefit them in college and beyond. College Acceptance – Many colleges look at community service as one of their determining factors for acceptance. In fact, the UC system suggests that students complete community service during high school. Promote School Community – Group service projects are great opportunities for students from different social groups to get to know one another outside of the classroom. Program Components 1. Director of Community Service Mrs. Kunkle is the Director of Community Service. Her duties include: To promote the community service program to students, faculty, and parents. To provide service opportunities to students. To collect, review, and track student service hours. To promote the service program to the non-profit community. 2. Service Requirement Each Direct Entry student to the Preparatory Academy is required to complete 20 hours of community service for each year of enrollment. Each International Foundation Year and Foundation Program student is to complete 10 hours for each year of enrollment in the International Foundation Center. The culmination of each student's service years will be in the creation of a reflective project detailing the services rendered and the subsequent lessons learned from these experiences. See page 8 for details. 3. Student Outcomes: Students will be provided the opportunity to: Bridge varied ethnic, socio-economic, and generational backgrounds Gain self-reliance, self-respect, and confidence while developing a positive self-esteem Learn values and more fundamentals to American democracy Experience connections between academic and real life situations Develop life skills that apply to personal life, professional life, and possible future careers Analyze their experiences via reflective writing and work collaboratively with members of the community. 3. Individual Service Opportunities In this manual, you will find many different organizations with contact information for which you can perform community service hours. In addition, we publish at least one service opportunity for students in the weekly e-newsletter. If you would like more personalized assistance, we are more than happy to work individually with families to find appropriate service opportunities for students based on their interests and abilities. Students are not limited to the hours published in this book – they may serve at any non-profit organization. 4. Group Service Opportunities Each month we offer an opportunity for Fairmont students to come together and serve their community as a group. Group service opportunities vary from month to month, and include: Beach clean-ups Tutoring younger children Preparing or serving meals to less fortunate Packing and sorting donations Cheering at walks and runs And much, much more 5. Service Clubs We have many service clubs in existence. Please see Page 9 for further information or visit Mrs. Kunkle in room 28. 3 What is Community Service? The Fairmont Preparatory Academy (FPA) Community Service Program helps guide students to develop, plan, carry out, and evaluate projects that improve the quality of life in their communities. Community Service helps young people build skills for family, career, and community roles and encourages young people to develop the positive character traits of trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring, and citizenship. Examples of community service projects include (but are not limited to): Cleaning a park through Adopt-a-Park Participating in on-campus drives by donating much needed items including clothes, hygiene products (toothpaste, tooth brush, soap, etc…), food, blankets, etc. Getting involved with Action Partnership or Boys & Girls Club Reading to the elderly in nursing homes Volunteering at hospitals (must be 16+ years of age) Helping out at a local public library Tutoring developmentally disabled children for free. Community service that engages youth is often called youth service. It is a methodology that is simultaneously employed to strengthen young peoples' senses of civic engagement and nationalism, as well as assist them in meeting educational, developmental, and social goals. Young people throughout the country are receiving outstanding community service awards from the United States for their accomplishments. For more information on awards visit the Presidential Service Award website. Why is Community Service important for my student? In cases of community service among youth, it is often a requirement for a student to advance to the next grade level or graduate from high school to perform a certain number of hours of service. This is the case for Fairmont’s Preparatory Academy. Community Service is used by college-bound high school seniors as a way of attracting colleges to accept them. There is no general amount of hours colleges are looking for when it comes to community service. However, they do look for them. Some colleges also require their own students to volunteer a specific number of hours to graduate and get a degree. Not only is community service beneficial for the community, but it benefits the student as well. Service learning is the deliberate connection of community service to stated learning goals. A common misconception among educators, youth workers, and young people is the notion that service learning can be assigned. Several experts attest to the necessity of engaging youth in deliberating, planning, implementing, and reflecting on their community service, thereby sustaining high quality service learning. This is intended to make community service an effective learning tool. To help