Students work at a cleanup and restoration project at a Rankin Blvd. mural site
At the Rankin Community Day, students create fun at a face painting table.
Students serve seniors at the Rankin Christian Center senior citizen luncheon held every second Friday of the month.
Students pick produce from the food farm to be distributed to food banks in Pittsburgh and surrounding communities.
Learn 'n Serve, a part of the Leaders of Tomorrow program, introduces elementary and middle school children to opportunities to better the lives of others. Through this experience of volunteering, children learn how to solve real problems, work with others, and gain the satisfaction of contributing to their own community. Service-learning, a relatively new federally funded endeavor, has spread throughout our country. As schools, colleges and community organizations see the successes of similar groups, they have chosen to incorporate the same concepts into their own ministries.
Under the auspices of National Ministries' Neighborhood Action Program, exceptional achievement and growth have blossomed at three locations: The Place in Norwich, N.Y.; Rankin Christian Center in Pittsburgh, Pa.; and Friendship House in Peoria, Ill.
The Place grew from a vision of First Baptist Church members who said, "We want to love all youth as they are and help them reach their full potential as they become responsible, contributing members of society." They have followed through for more than two decades, with Learn 'n Serve providing a great vehicle for their desire to be fulfilled.
A main objective of the program is to build resiliency in children. When they recognize the impact they are making in their community, they can also see that they are helping themselves and, with that self-assurance, will choose a different direction than their peers who are heading for destructive behaviors.
Norwich children volunteer for Roots and Wings, an organization that gathers food, clothing and household items for area residents in need. They also work with the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and other agencies. Their Martin Luther King Day spaghetti luncheon for 100 people grew from weeks of preparation, where the students planned the menu and created advertising, as they researched the life of Dr. King. When they settled down afterwards, the children described the experience as fun and cool. One girl observed that the group had not fought with each other for weeks.
David Sheldon, executive director of The Place, has observed the transformation of many middle school girls and boys from being unfocused and unsure of themselves to begin to assume responsibility. "In the course of time, as they do service projects, they grow and mature in front of your eyes," he explains. "They stand straighter and look you in the eye and talk to you."
After-school programs are part of all three of these faith-based facilities. At Rankin Christian Center, middle school students meet to identify a project and then proceed to figure out how to accomplish it. When the program director of Learn 'n Serve America at Rankin Christian Center, Leah Hardaway, reflects on success stories, a young man comes to mind. "He was very laid back, reserved and quiet. but the more he started to get involved in projects, his personality came out and you saw him evolve into a leadership role," she says. "This is what we like to encourage."
Often, as students move on to high school, they become mentors for younger children. This is another goal of the service-learning concept: Teach children the importance of being involved so that when they see something wrong, they will take the initiative to work to correct it.
Learn 'n Serve at Friendship House in Peoria, faces a community that has lived through many years of generational poverty, resulting in even the youngest child having a feeling of hopelessness and helplessness. So three years ago, when this service-learning grant crossed the desk of Friendship House executive director Barbara Hartnett, she thought, "Wow! Service-learning is the perfect melding of the secular and religious and that is what we are trying to do as we empower our children."
Almost 400 girls and boys have grown vegetables in Peoria, which they donated to the soup kitchen. They also made pillows and delivered them to an assisted living facility. One activity, possibly of the most consequence, developed from their seeing a movie about the Civil Rights movement. They learned that many people, both African American and white, had died so that African Americans would have the right to vote. They went home full of inspiration, only to become downhearted when they learned that their families had never voted. These 7- to 12 year-olds ran a registration drive in their neighborhood with the help of adult volunteers. They studied history, civics and the voting process, and then went door-to-door, ringing doorbells and educating neighbors.
The Leaders of Tomorrow program is helping these three Christian centers fulfill the vision birthed through the First Baptist Church in Norwich, N.Y., who said, "We want to love all youth as they are and help them reach their full potential as they become responsible, contributing members of society."
Wanda McGlinchey-Ryan is a freelance writer living in Exton, Pa.
