A great Service Learning website!

Today I researched Service Learning on the web and came across a great website for getting ideas, help, and info about Service Learning. http://www.nylc.org/ is the website that I speak of. It has all kinds of great ideas for Service Learning projects, it also has great help and advice to go by when doing Service Learning projects. To get to the service learning ideas section from the homepage, scroll down abit and click on learn more under find resources. Then on the right hand side of the page click project examples, then pick a key topic and scroll through the ides given for that topic to find the perfect project idea or you.

Blogged by Robby

New To You Thrift Store Project

Today at school we had a guest speaker Karen from the Thrift Store. 

She talked about the Thrift Store and how it is non profit because  the money the make goes back in to the community in to other projects.  Karen had us short some shirts and pants in to piles of men's, women's and kids piles. 

It was pretty fun just doing something with friends and doing something new for a change.

bloged by Jacob 08-25-10

New to You Thrift Store Project

Today a woman named Karen came to JDLA and talked to us about helping the New To You Thrift Store

in Oskaloosa Ks, up north from the school. She brought in some clothes for us to fold and even though
it was a surprise, it still felt great to help the Thrift store because they are all volunteers. It was a little
challenging because it was a surprise when she just showed up here but it wasn’t hard to help. It was good
to help others because when you help someone that  act of kindness causes another act of kindness and
it just keeps growing until there’s a multiple of people being kind.
It feels good knowing that by doing this I am being part of a bigger picture, because The New To
You Thrift Store is part of a network of people and organizations that are helping people. Some of the other
organizations are:

1. Topeka Rescue Mission
2. Heavens Closet
3. Holiday Helpers
4. Santa’s Toy Express

All of the Money from these organizations go to support Jefferson County and the organizations of it. Because of this I feel as if I’m part of something bigger and it makes me feel good and I love the feeling. There is nothing like the feeling of helping someone else, its one of the best feeling in the world.

jacob's poem

This is a poem I wrote in creative writing in Graham's class.

I am a battlefield of love and life I walk on this minefield called love when I ryme it is a symphony of jealousy.  I dance the dance of truth but in the end there is nothiness of justice but a circus of carnival of respect for those that have fallen for good because they to need to be respected with honor and grace of a angel with wings of white light and demons with wings of dark and us with wings of light and dark. Humans aren't mistakes but make them like a cook to cake or an ox to strength or a rich man bank but no matter what we still make mistakes.
Jacob

First Blog Post

Wow!  Today we set up our google acount and went through a few blogs to sample style, content and purpose.  We ran out of time for posting so I get to make the first entry!  My name is Denise and I am the school social worker and service learning coordinator here at John Dewey Learning Academy.  We are a small alternative high school serving rural northeast Kansas.  I have four students in my class which is called, "Service Learning".  Service Learning is an instructional technique which incorporates academic instruction with community based service that is connected to, reinforces or extends the academic instruction.  In other words, it is hands on, real world practice of our skills! So... the goal of the class is to plan and guide our school wide service learning as well as to complete some small class size projects.  We will also attempt to write at least one or two blog entries each week sharing our struggles, challenges, triumphs and learning!

Our first project is actually a yearlong project - in fact, it is a multi-year project/partnership.  We visit the Topeka Rescue Mission once a month to serve lunch.  We have been doing this for several years now.  Check them out at http://trmonline.org/!  They are an amazing not for profit agency serving three meals five days a week and two meals two days a week to anyone who walks into their building.  They provide MANY other services to individuals and families.  JDLA students have many academic links to homelessness throughout the year. 

SOOOOO..... our first visit to TRM included three of the students in my class of four.  Today I asked them to answer these questions:  *what should the other students who are going to go to TRM the first time know *what was challenging for you  * what was good  *how did it feel to be helpful to others and they answered... 

Jacob said:  They are nice there, don't drop the food, be polite, understand that they might have some troubles and be patient, wear a hat.  What was challenging for you? Being polite was somewhat challenging because some people were rude but most were nice.  The food was good and most people were polite.  It felt good to help others because they need help more than some.

Jon said:  I was challenged to stay focused when my hunger tried to take over.  The other challenge was not to scratch my head while wearing a hairnet!  It felt very great!  I was real excited to be able to help people who don't have much.  It felt as if I was doing something that makes a difference, no matter how small.

Robby said:  I think it was pretty easy to serve at the TRM.  All I did was serve a spoonful of peas.  The only thing that was challenging was not touching other things than the food with my gloved hands.  Everytime I had to itch I had to remove my glove.  The beans were really good!  It felt good to be able to help others by serving people.  In fact, I'd like to do it again!

Denise said:  Yay!  Service Learning!