One of the elements of the Empowering Urban Youth program is youth outreach/community service.  This notion of engaging in community service is an essential element in parochial schools, but should it also be a requirement for public schools?  With President Obama’s new initiative of college grant money in exchange for community service hours, should the service hours begin in high school?

There are numerous benefits of community service, especially for young adults.

1.  Students gain a sense of empowerment.  Students from suburban schools and urban schools alike gain self-confidence and an overall sense of empowerment from engaging in community service.  For students in an urban setting, by serving others and reaching out to make a difference in the lives of other people, animals, the environment, and in their community, these young adults are able to see beyond their current limitations and challenges and feel confident in their individual ability to make a difference.

2.  Students learn essential skills in the areas of teamwork, leadership, communication, planning, and conflict resolution.  These are all skills that employers seek.

3.  Students are also given a chance to express their creative ideas, as well as develop their creativity.  By working in tight-knit teams, students are able to enter a comfort zone in which they are more likely to share their creative ideas and plans.

4.  By working with the staff at a nursing home reaching out to senior citizens, planning an environmental cleanup project with a group of engineers, ordering food and drinks with the planning committee of a soup kitchen, or calculating veterinarian costs with the operations manager of an animal shelter, students learn real-world skills, much like job shadowing.  These skills are vital to the students’ future employment opportunities.

5.  Beyond the sense of empowerment and acquisition of valuable skills, students also get a chance to form lasting relationships with other young adults, as well as members of the community.

It seems to be a win-win for everyone…..

What are potential challenges?  Well, with the addition of any new iniative, especially in a school setting, additional resources are needed.  Service hours are currently required in many parochial schools.  From conversations with parents of students in parochial schools, service hours are sometimes difficult to obtain due to a lack of coordination/correspondence with community organizations.  Many of these schools require the service hours, but then do not have a school representative to match the students with the service opportunities.  This resource, the school-to-community representative is an essential element for an effective service hour program.

To connect with President Obama’s initiative, the benefits of service hours are many, extending from the individual students to the community at-large.  But, the resources need to also be in place.