Service Learning and Featured Agencies

Service-Learning is a teaching and learning strategy that integrates meaningful community service with instruction and reflection to enrich the learning experience, teach civic responsibility, and strengthen communities.

Through service-learning, offered by the Volunteer Center of Cedar Valley, young people—from preschoolers to college students—use what they learn in the classroom to solve real-life problems. They not only learn the practical applications of their studies, they become actively contributing citizens and community members through the service they perform.

Service-learning can be applied in a wide variety of settings, including schools, universities, and community-based and faith-based organizations. It can involve a group of students, a classroom or an entire school. Students build character and become active participants as they work with others in their school and community to create service projects in areas such as education, public safety, and the environment.

Community members, students, and educators everywhere are discovering that service-learning offers all its participants a chance to take part in the active education of youth while simultaneously addressing the concerns, needs, and hopes of communities.

Jean Seeland, Program Coordinator at the Volunteer Center of Cedar Valley is of the opinion that people of any age may use service-learning well.  At the pre-school level, there is not a lot of choice allowed as to types of projects, however, the enthusiasm for doing any kind of service-learning more than makes up for consensus building. The high school level is also a great age for effective service-learning. In addition, family service projects develop a nice presence for family involvement while building a passion for service within the family unit. Jean’s favorite group is probably the 4-5^th grade level. This age combines the enthusiasm and the creativity of all of the levels and usually come up with some innovative projects. For example, last year, 4^th graders wrote a play about bullying and another group put together a toy drive.

The agencies Jean works with most often include the Northeast Iowa Food Bank and the Salvation Army. Both of these community agencies have been utilized because they can more easily accommodate large groups of youth of varying ages to do service projects. Both of these agencies have been utilized in a variety of ways. For example the Salvation Army has been a place to donate” health kits” for homeless people and the after-school program has participated in the VCCV’s literacy event for Global Youth Service Day and a literacy project done by Hoover a few years ago. Youth also rang bells for the Salvation Army for their Joy Maker Day of Service project last December. Service-learning students have also utilized the Northeast Iowa Food Bank in a variety of ways—by collecting food, stacking shelves, and bagging cat and dog food from the Cedar Bend Humane Society that the Food Bank includes in their food boxes for elderly who have pets.

These are just a few of the many organizations the Volunteer Center of Cedar Valley utilizes when planning and participating in service-learning projects. To learn more about service-learning, contact Jean Seeland.