East Carolina University. Tomorrow starts here.
A P i rat e ’s Guide to
Service A publication of the Volunteer and Service-Learning Center
The MLK Day of Service 2010 Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is a federal holiday observed on the third Monday in January. The day is typically marked on college and university campuses as a day to sleep in, as there is no class. But here at ECU we challenge students to celebrate this day off by committing to having a “day on.” Each January since 2003, ECU has planned and hosted the MLK Day of Service. This is a day for students to join together and engage in service activities in the community surrounding the university. This year the event is set to take place January 18th, from 8:00-12:00 p.m. The day will begin with an opening ceremony honoring Dr. King and his legacy of service. The students will then divide into groups and travel to designated agencies to perform service-related activities. After which, there will be a reflection activity with each group. The event is still in the planning process; however, the VSLC is hoping to secure 15 community agency partnerships which will allow up to 150 student volunteers to participate in service that day. Students are asked to register for a project prior to the event to ensure that each project has a balanced number of volunteers. Some of the past projects include: food inspection/sorting at the Food Bank, organizing children’s clothing donations at RHA Howell, removing bushes and overgrown roots at Tar River Manor, repainting bathrooms at the Boys and Girls Club, and preparing care packages for soldiers overseas at Give2theTroops. If you are interested in participating in the MLK Day of Service, please check the VSLC Web site (www.ecu.edu/ vslc) or contact Michael Loeffelman (loeffelmanm@ecu. edu) for more details. Registration will begin directly after winter break. Do not delay, spaces will fill quickly.
Page Two Student Spotlight Community Partner Annual Meeting
Make A Difference Day Review Make a Difference Day takes place on the fourth Saturday of every October. It is a celebration of neighbors helping neighbors and on October 24th a national day of service turned local as 49 ECU students branched out into the community to work on various projects at 4 community partner agencies. The participating community partners included: The Little Willie Center, the Humane Society of Greenville, Give to the Troops, and RHA Howell. The day’s activities ranged from dog-walking to clean up, from painting to organizing, and from packing boxes to making cards. The day kicked off at 8:30 a.m. Saturday morning. The volunteers warmed up to the day and to each other with ice breaker games and information for the day. After the orientation, the volunteers headed over to their sites for the remainder of the day. After about four hours of hard work, volunteers gathered with their student site leaders for a reflection activity. When asked what the volunteers enjoyed most about their day of service, many simply replied, “Every part of it!” To see so many people willing to help their neighbors without any compensation or reward is an extremely satisfying and unifying feeling that the VSLC is proud to have helped students to observe and achieve.
Page Three Southern Living Assisted Care President’s Honor Roll
Page Four Calendar of VSLC Upcoming Events SL November Work Shop NPHC Holiday Service Kickoff
VSLC Student Spotlight
A Pirate’s Guide to Service Page 2
Student Spotlight: Kim Scott
Kim Scott is not only a full-time senior child development and family relations major who commutes from Raleigh each day. She is also the coordinator of the ECU READS program that is housed in the VSLC. ECU READS is a campus based tutoring and mentoring literacy program that strives to improve the reading skills of children and to promote the value of literacy through volunteerism, training and advocacy. The program creates awareness among university and community members of needs and opportunities related to literacy.
East Carolina University
The program began in 2005 at Wahl Coates Elementary with just a handful of volunteers and has grown each year to the point that this year, under Kim’s leadership, there are 55 tutors and the program has had to expand to Eastern Elementary to accommodate them all. Kim is extremely proud of the growth of the program, having begun as a tutor at Wahl Coates herself a few semesters back. These tutors are really making a difference. Kim says, “by offering these students a one-on-one opportunity to supplement their education they are more likely to achieve the goal of literacy.” When asked in what other ways she hopes to develop the program, Kim mentioned ECU COUNTS that will begin as a pilot program in the spring semester at Eastern Elementary. “The feedback that we have received from participating principals and teachers is that the majority of the tutees in the READS program often struggle in math as well,” reports Ms. Scott. It is the hope of the VSLC that the COUNTS pilot program begun by Kim will be as successful as the READS program and will continue for many semesters to come.
Community Partner Annual Meeting Recap
Kim Scott will be graduating in the spring, but her contributions to the VSLC and the ECU READS and ECU COUNTS programs are her legacy to ECU. She has been a dedicated volunteer not only to these programs but also with Kidsfest, Piratefest, and Pen Friends. She will be greatly missed but will be moving on to either graduate school or to hopefully begin her own pilot reading program in Raleigh area schools. We wish her all the best! The 19th of September marked the first ever VSLC Community Partner Annual Meeting. The meeting was held in the Willis Building and was attended by representatives from 70 community agencies and organizations that the VSLC partners with in service throughout the year. Shawn Moore, the VSLC Community Partner Coordinator, began the meeting by summarizing the past year of the Center. She discussed the programs and events that the VSLC participated in and the upcoming projects that the Center will be undertaking. She also discussed the three-year contracts that the community organizations must complete and sign in order to continue their partnerships with the VSLC. Next, the Community Partners, who are strong advocates for Service-Learning (S-L) students, were able to hear some of the feedback that last year’s S-L students gave about their experiences. The survey results were overwhelmingly positive in regards to the Community Partners. Students said that they felt comfortable at their sites, that they were well-prepared, that they received adequate training, and that they would volunteer at those sites again. The annual meeting was brought to a close with the awarding of the Community Partner of the Year awards for the 2008-09 academic year. The recipients of this year’s awards were the Ronald McDonald House and the American Red Cross. Both organizations stood out as having had exceptional years in regards to their partnerships with ECU. The first Community Partner Annual Meeting was a huge success and the VSLC looks forward to continuing with this new tradition in the years to come.
“Those who bring sunshine into the lives of others, cannot keep it from themselves.” James M. Barrie
A Pirate’s Guide to Service Page 3
Campus Opportunities
President’s Honor Roll
East Carolina University
The national winners of the 2009 President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll will be announced early in 2010. The VSLC would like to thank everyone who submitted a service project as well as to commend all those doing work to support the university and surrounding communities through service. Keep up the great work and please consider submitting your projects for review for the 2010 call for proposals next October.
Southern Living Assisted Care (SLAC), formerly known as Stafford Glen, is looking forward to new programs to go along with its new name. SLAC has been serving the area for about 30 years and as an assisted living organization for the elderly. Their goals are to provide the best and most excellent care to residents and staff as well as the continuing support of surrounding hospitals, communities and volunteers. SLAC serves not only Greenville, but also Raleigh, Pollocksville, Elizabeth Town, and other surrounding areas. SLAC depends on volunteers to keep the residents engaged and happy. Volunteers give the residents a chance to talk and visit with someone new. The staff of SLAC do their best to keep residents socially engaged and entertained but the extra help and enthusiasm that comes from the volunteers is irreplaceable. Residents are happiest when there are more entertainment and social options and when they have more contact with those outside of the facility. As the holidays approach SLAC has an increased need for volunteers. The holiday season is a particularly emotional time for some residents and SLAC attempts to keep residents busy and content with as many events and activities as possible. Throughout December volunteers are needed to help with gift wrapping, to dress up as Santa Claus and his elves, to help serve food at holiday meals, to assist with craft activities, and to sing carols throughout the facility to the residents. Southern Living Assisted Care is located at 2060 W. 5th Street. If you are interested in volunteering please contact David Clayburn at 226-4622. SLAC is one of several elderly assisted care organizations in the area. As volunteer spaces fill up at SLAC, please consider other organizations that have comparable missions and volunteer needs. Two similar organizations are: •Spring Arbor Living of Greenville, contact Walldine McGarvey at (252) 355-7003 •Sterling House of Greenville, Contact Juile Daughtery at (252) 758-9155
Southern Living Assisted Care
The Volunteer and Service-Learning Center (VSLC) requested service project submissions from the East Carolina University campus community to be included in the 2009 President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll application. ECU has had several projects recognized in past years. That is why it was no surprise to the VSLC when they received a multitude of submissions. The staff was highly impressed by the diversity and strength of the projects submitted and by the important community work being done by so many faculty, staff, and students. After much deliberation, the VSLC is pleased to announce that the following projects will be submitted in the overall President’s Honor Roll application: • Belvoir Project (University Honors Program) • Camp Whole Heart (Child Development and Family Relations Department) • Maritime Research Outreach Project (Maritime Studies Program) • Reach Up Program (Mathematics, Science, and Instructional Technology Education Department) • Student Pirate Club Blood Drive Challenge (Student Organization/Athletics Department) • Wounded Warrior (Interior Design and Merchandising Department)
Community Spotlight
A Pirate’s Guide to Service Page 4
Calendar of VSLC Upcoming Events
Community Partner Workshop: Wednesday, December 3 from 12:30-3:30 p.m. in the Mendenhall Student Center Pirate Treasure Program: December 3 and 4 from 10:00 a.m.-4:00 p.m. in the Willis Building University Winter Break: December 17-January 8 MLK Day of Service: Monday, January 18 from 8:00 a.m.-12:30 p.m., (location not yet assigned) Spring Service Fair: Wednesday, January 27 from 12:00-3:30 p.m., (location not yet assigned) Spring T.R.I.P.S.: March 7-14, (location not yet assigned)
Greek Holiday Service Kickoff
The National Pan-Hellenic Council (NPHC), ECU’s umbrella organization for the nine largest historically African American fraternities and sororities in the nation, is on a mission this holiday season. The mission: affect as many lives as possible in the Greenville community before this year’s holiday season comes to an end. On Thursday, November 19, 2009 at 7 p.m. in the Science and Technology Building , NPHC hosted its first annual holiday social. The social kicked off with the community organizations PiCASO, Operation Sunshine, and Operation Freedom being awared checks in the amounts of $500, $500, and $300 respectively, in recognition of their hard work and dedication to the Greenville and ECU communities. The evening continued with members of the NPHC organizations fufilling their pledge to package 50 Thanksgiving dinners for the Little Willie Center, an afterschool facility for underprivileged youth. “We purchased 50 boxes each of macaroni and cheese, cornbread mix, stuffing; 50 cans of green beans, corn, and cranberry sauce; 50 boxes of cake mix and frosting, and to complete the meal, 50 turkeys so that 50 families in our community will have a wonderful Thanksgiving this year,” said Deron Hall, President of NPHC. For more information on NPHC events or any of its organizations, please contact Deron Hall at ddh0404@ecu.edu or visit the ECU Greek Life Web site at www.ecu.edu/cs-studentaffairs/greeklife/nphc.
Service-Learning Workshops
When students participate in service-learning experiences, the world becomes their classroom. Organization, time management, and outcomes become more important than ever, because real people are affected by the actions students take in the community. Supervising this type of hands-on learning can be challenging, so the Volunteer and Service-Learning Center hosts several workshops each semester to support ECU faculty who use service-learning in their courses. In November, Annette Greer, PhD, presented a workshop titled Assessing Service-Learning, which addressed peer tested strategies for evaluating the impact of service-learning on students, communities, faculty, partnerships, and the institution. Spring workshops will tentatively include advanced reflection techniques, and multi-disciplinary service-learning, and will be announced in early 2010.
HAPPY HOLIDAYS
from the VSLC staff
Volunteer and Service-Learning Center Old Cafeteria Complex 252-328-2735 (phone) 252-328-0139 (fax) www.ecu.edu/vslc vslc@ecu.edu Judy Baker, Institutional and Community Development Consultant Kimberly Caudle, AmeriCorps*VISTA Jessica Gagne Cloutier, Service-Learning Coordinator Michael Loeffelman, Volunteer Coordinator Shawn Moore, Community Partner Coordinator
November/December Edition 2009