YOUthServe Leadership Project

Issue: Access to Higher Education / Closing the Achievement Gap

Grant Amount: $28,000.00
Athens, GA
Year Funded: 2011
Organization: Community Connection of Northeast Georgia, Inc.

Contact Information

Dawn Aiello, Community Connection Program Director, .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Jessica Parker, YOUthServe Facilitator, .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

The YOUthServe Leadership Project aims to engage local high school students in service-learning and leadership development in order to empower students to graduate high school, attain a post-secondary education, and make a positive difference in their communities. This project is based on the belief that youth can change their communities, and we should provide them with the knowledge and support they need to do so. Participating students will build leadership and teamwork skills, learn about issues affecting their community, and plan service projects to address an important issues in their community.

The YOUthServe Leadership Project will address Access to Higher Education/ Closing the Achievement Gap. By providing service-learning and leadership development opportunities free of charge to low-income students, Community Connection will work to close the achievement gap. Low-income students will have equal opportunity to build their leadership and volunteer experience as their peers. The project’s curriculum will be connected to academic goals and the Georgia Performance Standards to provide students with practical application of what they are learning in their classrooms. Service-learning is a proven method of instruction to improve academic achievement and school engagement. Community Connection will also focus on increasing access to higher education by providing educational and professional development workshops to provide students with the information, resources, and support needed to navigate the process of attaining a post-secondary education.

Project Updates

October - Rivers Alive

YOUthServe participants volunteered for their first monthly day of service on October 15th through the annual Rivers Alive project. Here is an excerpt from one of out YOUthServe leaders, Annie.

"Rivers Alive is an annual volunteer waterway cleanup that I got to

participate in through the Hands On Northeast Georgia Youth Serve program this past Saturday.
While 8:00 is not usually the liveliest time for me on a Saturday, the brisk weather and short walk
through Dudley Park to the meeting site was a pleasant entrance to the event. After being split
up into groups, each set of volunteers were sent to different sites, mine being Oglethorpe
Elementary. While working pulling kudzu and privet, I was struck by the observation of the diversity of
our group and how quickly we were able to collaborate and conquer the invasive plants. I got to
meet a few peers who attend school with me that I had never seen before while meeting people from other
schools as well. At the end of the activity I felt it was valuable talking about how the work will
benefit the community and looking at how much progress we had made. I appreciated the planning and care for the environment that went in to the event and hope to be a part of it next year."

November - Arbor Terrace

In November, HandsOn Northeast Georgia’s YOUthServe visited Arbor Terrace Assisted Living to spend time with residents. YOUthServe is partnering with the Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice to engage all youth in our community with Service Learning. This partnership helps teens get to know each other through community service and has created more diversity within the YOUthServe group. Assisted Living residents gave positive feedback from having spent time with our group of teens. The group of 15 enjoyed conversation and activities to promote cognitive stimulation in seniors.

Here is an excerpt from YOUthServe Leader Jay about his visit to Arbor Terrace in November.

"Arbor Terrace is a thriving community that houses the wise and elderly. I had the pleasure of accompanying YouthServe to Arbor Terrace to spend time with the residents. It surprised me how much I enjoyed playing catch and coloring with them. My heart was warmed to see how genuinely delighted they were to be spending time with young people. I also enjoyed listening to the stories of their lives and the wisdom they were generous enough to impart. I left Arbor Terrace feelling less like I had done community service and more like I had just hung out with some old friends."

December - GYSD Planning

At our last weekly meeting, YOUthServe participants discussed ideas for their Global Youth Service Day projects and how to find ways to promote awareness with Latino teens entering college. Some of our YOUthServe participants will be working with a Freedom University panel discussing ideas to support their peers. YOUthServe participants are also discussing project ideas such as Habitat for Humanity and food drives. Since August our 83 YOUthServe participants have worked on multiple projects in our community.

January - Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service

YOUthServe adopted Oglethorpe Elementary as a project site for MLK Day of Service. 65 youth ages 13-17 signed up in advance to volunteer and many more worked to make community improvements.YOUthServe participants spent the morning planting trees, building flower beds, and removing invasive plants along the beautiful community nature trail.

The following was written by a YOUthServe Leader:

Many teenagers think of MLK day as simply another day off from school. It is so much more than that. The birthday of Dr. King is a day dedicated to his memory of social service and equality. It is only fitting that we commemorate him by participate in acts of selflessness so that we can truly demonstrate that his vision is alive in well even after his death. Volunteering on MLK day is a way to show your appreciation and gratitude to your community. It’s a way of giving back to your community after it has spent years nurturing you and teaching many of life’s lessons. MLK day is about showing how the ability to put others’ needs ahead of our own can make a difference in a world. It all starts with one person and a choice. Volunteerism on this day is a choice in the right direction. The community can often times seem inconsistent on how it views teenagers. But YOUthServe provides an opportunity to show your community how integral and important you are by providing volunteer opportunities. Take your chance now. Show the world what you are made of. - Jay Morris- YOUthServe Leader

February - Stop Violence Service-Learning Project

In February, YOUthServe volunteered at Project Safe Thrift Store for our Stop Violence Service Learning Project. Project Safe Thrift Store sells donated items such as clothing, books, games, and furniture at bargain prices. Project Safe clients are able to receive items directly from the thrift store, and the money generated goes to support clients. Project Safe is a non profit organization that provides ongoing support services for survivors of domestic violence. YOUthServe participants enjoyed learning about retail while we helped to shelve donated items and paint doors in the store.

March - Preparation for Global Youth Service Day

Our monthly service project for March was cancelled due to inclmenet weather and Spring Break interrupted our YLP meetings, so a lot of work for Global Youth Service Day was happening on the students' own time and through electronic means. A few of our YLP students, Sara and Elizabeth, were nailing down details and beginning their promotion process for the Dress Sale to benefit Project Safe Thrift Store. Jay and Wendy continued to recruit artists for their symposium on undocumented students in Georgia. Their aim was to raise awareness about the issue of their undocumented peers being unable to attend many postsecondary schools in Georgia and to talk about ways to support those students. The students got to begin seeing the process of taking an idea and molding it into action! They had the opportunity to interact with adults in securing locations for their advocacy/awareness events, all while talking about their issue area along the way.

April - Global Youth Service Day!

Global Youth Service Day was a 3-day service initiative on April 20-22, 2012. In those three days, 1,429 youth (ages 5 - 25) contributed 5,716 hours of service at over 20 different project sites around the county! An effort of this magnitude simply cannot be accomplished by a single organization. HandsOn NEGA is very grateful for its partnerships with the Clarke County School District, Keep Athens-Clarke County Beautiful, the University of Georgia, the Department of Juvenile Justice, the members of the Athens Community Mentor Collaborative and the dozens of local nonprofit and government agencies that were willing to host and make accommodations for our young volunteers. We are also thankful to Youth Service America and the State Farm Youth Advisory Board because without these two excellent leaders in youth empowerment and service we would not have been able to fund all of these wonderful projects.

Our partnership with the Department of Juvenile Justice continued and young offenders were able to fulfill some of their community service requirements throughout this weekend. Our YLP participants carried out their GYSD projects with great success, too! The Dress Sale raised $200 to support Project Safe and the Film and Art Symposium engaged a variety of artists and brought students together to share ideas and discuss a difficult topic.

May - Reflecting on YLP

YLP leaders were asked to submit reflections about their experience with the YOUthServe Leadership Project during the 2011-2012 year. Here are two of those exceprts.

"YOUthServe has been an awesome opportunity for me. It has helped me develop leadership skills, come in contact with awesome, aware people who care about their community, and to stick to goals I have made for myself. I'm goign to miss working with YOUthServe YLP, but I do know that great things lie in store for this organization as I leave it. I am proud to call myself a member of YOUthServe and am excited to hear about what it accomplishes in the future."

"I'm always going to treasure the time I spent at YLP. Through this experience I really learned about the needs of the community and the different programs designed to help out. I will not forget the wonderful conversations that popped up at our meeting: inspiriation, passionate, out of the box. Perfect words to describe the people that I encountered through this program."

These two students are graduating from the Clarke County School District and have both been accepted to Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia! Congrats!

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