The Resource Center: National Youth Service Day effective practices

Planning a National Youth Service Day project

National Youth Service Day provides an opportunity for organizations to recognize the service efforts of youth, recruit additional youth to volunteer, build support for youth service organizations, and promote youth as resources in their communities. The National Youth Service Day toolkit by Youth Service America provides strategies to help recruit volunteers, incorporate service-learning, receive media coverage, fundraise, and build partnerships. Also included are sample forms, examples of past events, and contact information for national partner organizations. Read more.

Bringing together service groups around a broadcast of Everyday Heroes

Everyday Heroes is a one-hour film that documents the AmeriCorps experience. Local AmeriCorps programs, commissions, and other service-related organizations can utilize a community broadcast of the film as an outreach opportunity to highlight members' service and to help raise public awareness of what organizations and communities are doing through service. This effective practice outlines ways to arrange broadcast of the film and to link the showing to community events, especially in conjunction with "Make a Difference Day." Rick Goldsmith and Abby Ginzberg, co-producers of the film, shared this effective practice via ACList, the AmeriCorps e-mail discussion list, on May 24, 2002. Read more.

Building young leaders through service-learning

Youth who develop leadership skills while participating in community service build self-esteem and engage even more people, especially other youth, in service. City Year San Jose/Silicon Valley is developing service-leadership skills in middle and high school students through their "Young Heroes" and "City Heroes" programs. The time-intensive programs structure service projects around leadership skills such as critical analysis, problem-solving, managing diversity and project management. Excerpted from The Resource Connection newsletter, Vol. 5, No.1. Read more.

Creating leaders with an integrated service-learning curriculum

While some schools devote a course or a project to service-learning curriculum, others have found that integrating it into all aspects of the students' education works best. At Langley Middle School, in Langley, Washington, the service-learning coordinator works closely with teachers to develop service-learning based curriculum. All of Langley's 520 students and a vast majority of the faculty and staff participate in one or more service-learning projects. More than 60 classes at the school incorporate service-learning components in the curricula. This program was highlighted in the National Service News, Issue No. 168, September 30, 2002, published by the Corporation for National and Community Service. Read more.

Developing civic service with a teen corps

Middle and high school students are searching for ways to contribute to their communities and their nation. The Teen Freedom Corps (TFC) provides a means for teens to channel their civic energies. Inspired by the USA Freedom Corps, the Teen Freedom Corps was officially launched after a countywide conference at Northern Highlands Regional High School in Allendale, New Jersey, on April 12, 2002. Lynn Feldman of Northern Highlands Regional High School submitted this effective practice in March 2002. Read more.

Encouraging leadership in girls with an after-school program

Research has found that as girls enter adolescence their capacity to "find their own voice" and express their authentic selves conflicts with new social pressure to maintain tension-free relationships and prioritize physical appearance. Additionally, because young women prefer interdependent styles of leadership in a society that promotes authoritarian, independent, role models, it is easy to see why adolescent girls may choose to follow rather than lead, and may feel that they are not in a position to affect change. The Young Women's Leadership Alliance is an after-school program that provides opportunities for girls to become leaders, to increase the skills and confidence of girls to make positive change and to have an impact on the policies and norms about educational equity at their schools. Jill Denner presented this effective practice to the Santa Cruz (CA) Chapter of Soroptomist International in November 2003. Read more.

Generating a list of 100 ways teens can serve their communities

For service organizations or agencies that involve teens, "100 Ways to Make a Difference in Your Community" can be a powerful starting point for affecting change. From something as simple as "walk a neighbor's dog" to the more structured "become a peer counselor" this list has something all members can relate to. Developed by Youth Service America, a resource center and premier alliance of over 300 organizations committed to increasing the quantity and quality of opportunities for young people to serve locally, nationally, or globally, this list is sure to generate thought, discussion, and activity. Read more.

Involving students in planning and implementing school-wide service-learning

Granite Falls High School in Washington State, a National Service-Learning Leader School, has developed a comprehensive service-learning program that involves all of its students, as well as members of the faculty, parents, and the community at large. This program was highlighted in the National Service News, Issue 130, published April 16, 2001 by the Corporation for National and Community Service. Read more.

Involving youth as partners in crime prevention

Despite negative stereotypes, youth exhibit a high rate of volunteerism and commitment to community. Channeling this energy and commitment into crime prevention programs can enhance communities in a variety of ways — including safer schools and safer neighborhoods. This effective practice, excerpted with permission from the National Crime Prevention Council's Young People as Active Partners in Crime Prevention (1996), offers tips for partnering with this important population in crime prevention programs. Read more.

Involving youth in community-based service-learning

ImPACT, a service-learning program at the Learning Web in Ithaca, New York, engaged youth in service-learning by giving them "voice and choice," which made service-learning relevant to their experiences. ImPACT ran as an extracurricular after-school program, which met twice a week for three hours over a five-month period. In the New Designs for Youth Development article "Making an ImPACT: The Power of Community-Based Service Learning," program coordinator Curtis Ogden discusses how he gave youth voice in each stage of the service-learning project: recruitment, group building, community research, selection and implementation of project, and evaluation and celebration. Read more.

Promoting youth volunteerism with a multi-district council

School administrators in Boyd County, Kentucky coordinated a multi-district method for students to promote character education and become volunteers. Middle and high school students from three school districts, one private school, one home school, and one residential alternative school, comprise the Boyd County Branch of the Kentucky Youth Council on Volunteerism and Service. Also included are AmeriCorps members who help with planning, logistics and implementation. This program was a recipient of the Kentucky Governor's Award for Outstanding Volunteer Service in 2000. Bill Burch of Boyd County Community Education submitted this effective practice in November 2002. Read more.

Reducing delinquency through service

This National Service Fellows report by Everette B. Penn, Reducing Delinquency Through Service, attempts to provide empirical support for volunteering and service as a tool to reduce juvenile delinquency. Through an examination of the literature on the Quantum Opportunities Program and Big Brothers Big Sisters, as well as Boys and Girls Club of America, the researcher concludes, "service does inspire, promote and support delinquency-prevention activities." Principles for effective service programs are highlighted. Read more.

Setting up a Kids Voting program to increase civic participation

Research has found that voting is a habit that must be learned early. By implementing a Kids Voting program, students learn about the voting process and civic responsibility, and will more likely become informed and civic-minded adults who will take an active role in the democratic process. Jeannie Mauldin, an educator at Rosemont Elementary School, submitted this effective practice in March 2002, after her school in LaGrange, Georgia, helped increase voter turnout in the district by 7 percent, providing absentee ballots to students from precincts that had not yet adopted a Kids Voting program. Read more.

Supporting adolescent females with a leadership group

Studies have shown that a dramatic decline in girls' self-esteem occurs between the ages of eight and 18. The International Learning Program in an alternative high school in Portland, Oregon, started an after-school Girls' Leadership Group to give female students a place to speak freely and build self-confidence. This paper by AmeriCorps member Erin Trahan won honorable mention in the 1997 Northwest National Service Symposium, hosted by the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory (NWREL). Read more.

Using America's Promise curriculum to raise civic awareness among youth

The Volunteer Center of the United Way of Wyandotte County's Power of Five program incorporates curriculum produced by America's Promise and introduces middle school students to the concept of the five promises. As part of the Volunteer Center's Youth Impact program, the five promises curriculum offers a way to connect youth to their community through service, consequently increasing awareness of their civic responsibilities. Read more.

Service Events