Engaging Students in Communities

Student involvement in service and service-learning produces valuable benefits to local communities and enables young people to become proactive members of society, while also experiencing the mutual benefit gained from such involvement.… Schools—both K–12 and postsecondary—as well as community-based and other service-learning programs provide useful places for engaging students in volunteer opportunities and in helping them start off on a solid path toward a lifetime of service and civic participation.

—Corporation for National and Community Service Strategic Plan 2006–2010
Focus Area Three: Engaging Students in Communities

Following is a sampling of the resources available to assist you in meeting the Corporation's goals in this focus area.

Online Publications

• Students in Service to America: A Guidebook for Engaging America's Students in a Lifelong Habit of Service (pdf)
• Service as a Strategy in Out-of-School Time: A How-To Manual
• Youth Helping America—Educating for Active Citizenship: Service-Learning, School-Based Service, and Civic Engagement (pdf)
• K–12 Starter Kit

Effective Practices

• Designing a service-learning program in ten steps
  
• Involving a campus community in service with a faith-based Learn and Serve program
  
• Assisting underperforming students with after-school service-learning
  
• Integrating service-learning in individual educational plans for primary school students with disabilities

Lending Library Resources

• Complete Guide to Service Learning (R2599)
  
• Community-Based Research and Higher Education: Principles and Practices (M2413)
  
• KIDS as Planners: A Guide to Strengthening Students, Schools and Communities Through Service-Learning (R1966)

Links to Useful Websites

• SaYES
• AmeriCorps
• Learn and Serve America
• Campus Compact
• National Service-Learning Clearninghouse

T/TA Provider

• National Service-Learning Clearinghouse

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