At Avalon, service learning week is a very important break from the regular day-to-day activities as it embodies all of our core principles: active learning, engaged citizenship, strong community, and hope for the future. Students brainstormed areas of need in the community and then went out to affect change in the areas that they chose. Students worked as a team to identify problems and work toward solutions, and students saw that they can actually make a difference in their own world.
“I’m really glad that I was a part of this service week. Finishing it up really made me feel like I actually accomplished something.” – An Avalon student
Avalon’s service learning week took place May 12th-15th and was quite successful overall. This year, each advisory worked as a team to come up with service ideas, and advisors helped facilitate contacts, learning opportunities, service projects, and other logistics. Many groups had learning opportunities in their advisories throughout the year, and during the week there were three days set aside for service. The increased student input and decision-making were important additions to this year’s service learning week.
“It is the one thing I will remember the most of this past school year. It was fun.” –An Avalon student
This year’s student-driven format allowed for many new, exciting service learning topics to be explored, including: puppy mills; recycling and clean-up; geo-caching and clean-up; local food and farming; invasive species removal; community art; hunger and homelessness; animal rescue; and the Great Lakes.
“During service week my advisory did a bunch of work in Avalon’s community, the Hamline Midway neighborhood. We started at the Hancock Rec center and painted the walls for The Canvas, a new teen art center opening there. Then we went to Mosaic on a Stick and made mosaics that will be put on the planters along Snelling Avenue. This is part of community project whose goal is to slow down traffic along the avenue. On the last day we worked at Horton Park mulching the new trees and pulling weeds. I really enjoyed completing this project. I feel like I really helped out the community and made it a better place.” –An Avalon student
At the end of the week, students from different groups joined together to share with one another about their group’s project, and to reflect on how service week went overall. The structured reflection time as well as the written reflection helped the advisors gain valuable feedback about student perceptions of service week. Students almost unanimously found the week to be valuable not only to the community, but to themselves and to the sense of community in the school; in fact, many students asked for more time to be spent doing service learning. Because of student feedback, staff are planning an additional service opportunity in the fall to coordinate with President Barack Obama’s day of service.
“…quite a number of students talked with the volunteer coordinators at each organization about returning to volunteer again during the summer.” –An Avalon advisor
It is with this vision of instilling a desire to volunteer, to improve their community that Avalon plans to continue service learning into the foreseeable future.