Service-Learning is becoming a new and widely used way to connect college campuses with their surrounding communities while making a difference. These communities are full of life, stories, history and opportunities that are ready to be achieved if only the average college student would dare to look. As part of my WIFYS (Writing Intensive First Year Seminar) class with Dr. Laurie Cella last fall, we were assigned to do an oral history.
This was no ordinary oral history assignment where you ask your grandparents about their experiences during WWII or something along those lines. This assignment was about getting out into the community and meeting real people who work to make the Shippensburg community what it is today. It was about reaching out and learning about the people who look to be your Average Joe in the community. Fellow classmates went to meet, learn, help and write about local members at the local Police Station, the nursing home, King's Kettle (a local soup kitchen), a literacy center that dealt with adult students and a Head Start program right on campus. As an Elementary Education major (focusing on the Pre-K through 4th grade students), I figured the best place for me to go was the Head Start Program.
The Head Start Program is a government funded program that gives lower income families the chance to get their children ready for kindergarten and a school setting. I had the pleasure to work with one of Shippensburg's Head Start's homebound educators, Barb. Barb who was not only an employee of Head Start but a former mother in the Head Start program, her job was not only to make sure the kids were ready to receive an education, but that their families were ready for it as well. I had the opportunity to go on one of Barb's home visits where she worked with her students on basic skills for kindergarten in their own homes. Along with observing and helping Barb with a portion of her job, I was also able to assist and observe one of her inclass days with all of her students.
This experience of working with someone who makes such an impact not only in their students' lives, but as well as their families helped me really put in perspective how we need these programs such as Head Start, to help bring education to everyone in America. This leads into what I'm doing this next year.
After I wrote my oral history for Dr. Cella's class, she really loved my essay and everything I did volunteer wise with Barb, that she suggested that I apply to be a Scholar in Service with the English Department right here in Shippensburg. A Scholar in Service (or as I am called now, a Community Fellow - there was a change in the program, hence the change in the name) is a full-time student at a college who must complete 300 hours of community service within a year. It is also about connecting the community and the campus while making a difference. Because of that, along with working with the English Department at Shippensburg, I would also work with the Franklin Literacy Council to help promote literacy and their program, if picked for the program.
I went into the interview, offered what I could do for the program and the Literacy Council and I found out the next day that I was picked. I was very excited and honored to be picked for this position. I knew that I had a lot to offer to the Literacy Council and that I could make a difference no matter how small with the overall goal of connecting the community and Shippensburg.
So now this brings me to the purpose of this blog. Along with spending hours volunteering at that Literacy Center, helping to write grants, finding ways to fundraise and so much more, I created this blog to help advocate what I am doing for this next year as well as hopefully gaining your support, as this blog reader (I'm not sure of the exact term for that) and ask for your help in this fight for giving everyone an opportunity to gain an education and help them succeed and obtain their goals. My name is Melanie Fehnel and I'm a Scholar in Service.
