Stone Soup is a collaborative of dozens of area churches, schools, government agencies and nonprofits, all with the goal of improving the lives of the residents of El Dorado Park. California State University, Fresno joined this partnership in 1993 and has become one of the major contributors to the program.

Now a formal nonprofit, Stone Soup offers a vast array of year-round services to the El Dorado Park residents. There are dozens of academic enrichment and recreation activities, job training programs, a senior service center, medical and dental clinics, nutrition and parenting classes, and a number of other projects.

Approximately 70 faculty and staff and over 300 students volunteer with Stone Soup each year. Faculty and students come from a variety of academic disciplines, including: Counseling, Social Work, Sociology, Child and Family Studies, Gerontology, Liberal Studies/Education, Health Science, Nutrition, Criminology, Theater Art/Drama, and many more. Students participate at Stone Soup as volunteers or through dozens of different service-learning and internship courses. There are also a large number of students who work at Stone Soup as part of the Federal Work Study program and through different scholarship and grant requirements. Everyone involved has had the opportunity to enrich their own lives and enhance their level of civic engagement.

The university has also assisted Stone Soup with financial support through grant funding, and we have acted as the fiscal agent for other grants obtained by the nonprofit. The partnership between Stone Soup, California State University, Fresno, and the other cooperating organizations and agencies is a model for highly effective and efficient nonprofit partnerships. The organization has had a significant impact on the area, as represented by the greatly diminished crime rates, improved academic achievement of the area youth, and the steadily improving socio-economic status of the neighborhood.

In recognition of their outstanding achievements, Stone Soup of Fresno and the partnering organizations have been honored with several prestigious awards, including: the Herman Goldstein POP Award, the Youth Citizenship Award, and the John Martin Fresno Area Reading Council Award. One of the most prestigious awards received by the Stone Soup project is the President s Service Award, conferred by President Clinton in 1995. In recognition of the university s contributions to the collaborative, Stone Soup gave the award to the University for housing and display. The partnership between California State University, Fresno and Stone Soup has been one that greatly benefits everyone involved. Our faculty, staff and students have significantly increased their knowledge of, appreciation for, and involvement in the El Dorado Park neighborhood and the community at large. Stone Soup has benefited from the many resources, both human and otherwise, contributed by the University. First and foremost, however, the residents of El Dorado Park have seen a dramatic change in their neighborhood and their lives. This partnership with Stone Soup has helped provide residents with the opportunities and resources they need to improve and enrich their lives in many ways.

Students for Community Service web site: http://www.csufresno.edu/scs/

Yan Matan is 74 years old. She is preparing to become naturalized as an American citizen. Her volunteer coach is one of 100 students at San Francisco State University and City College of San Francisco who work this semester with elders in citizenship and ESL literacy classes through SHINE, Students Helping in the Naturalization of Elders. Project SHINE is a national community- service learning effort with sister sites in Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, Miami and San Francisco. Co-directors Gail Weinstein of SFSU and Nina Gibson of CCSF, work with faculty from a wide range of disciplines to develop “”project options”" for academic classes. Students who choose to participate in SHINE are trained as “”citizenship coaches”", and are placed in citizenship classes to tutor one-on-one or in small rows. The hope is that all participants gain citizenship knowledge and skills, develop confidence in themselves as learners, and nurture intergenerational relationships that last long after the project ends.

In Spring 1999, approximately 100 students from two campuses participated from English, Asian-American Studies, La Raza, Anthropology, Women’s Studies, ESL and Political Science. Project evaluations to date have indicated that as students assist elders in preparing to become citizens, their own academic learning is deepened, and they themselves have an opportunity to participate in our communities in the best sense of true citizenship.

As one coach says: “”I feel very fortunate to have landed in such an exciting class, where so many students experience success in their learning and citizenship attainment. The elders are so appreciative, and tell us how much we make a difference. I feel lucky to be working with a teacher who is an outstanding educator. Thanks so much for helping to set up such a great learning experience for me.”"

There is enormous satisfaction in building a program where academic course work comes to life; language is learned, and our community is strengthened through intergenerational relationships that we hope will last.

Contact people: Gail Weinstein, SFSU, gailw {at} sfsu(.)edu; Nina Gibson, CCSF, ngibson {at} ccsf(.)edu
SHINE web site: http://thecity.sfsu.edu/~shine/

From Service Matters 1998: Engaging Higher Education In the Renewal of America s Communities and American Democracy

Website: www2.coloradocollege.edu/Students/Pathfinder/Opportunities/OtherOrganizations.html

One outcome of these campus-community partnerships and leadership collaborations is the very successful “”2+4=Service on Common Ground”" initiative funded by the Corporation for National Service and the Campus Compact National Center for Community Colleges. From 1997-2000, this initiative developed five major pathways engaging more than 70 faculty and 1,500 students at KCC and UHM. The pathways were developed to engage students in service to their community, and integrate their service with academic study in general education core courses and disciplinary majors. The pathways included:

1. Partnering with the Community – Students chose to serve at more than 70 community-based organizations and two dozen K-12 schools.
2. Educating for Citizenship – Students tutored hundreds of elderly Chinese immigrants to pass the U.S. Citizenship Test.
3. Adopting an Ahupua a – Students cared for the environment (our literal common ground) between Diamond Head and Manoa Valley. An ahupua a is a traditional Hawaiian land tenure division from the mountains to the sea. Both KCC and UHM students developed environmental responsibility stewardship skills in our Waikiki Ahupua a.
4. Celebrating Teen Reading - Students led reading circles with hundreds of local teenagers and built critical literacy skills and authentic interpersonal relationships. Funding from the Hawaii Council for the Humanities also supported this pathway and an annual Teen Reading Festival where students met face-to-face with the authors of the books shared in the reading circles.
5. Caring Long-term – Students provided direct services to 100 home-bound elderly through Project Dana, Hospice Hawaii, and numerous long-term care programs.

Faculty partnerships also resulted in a sustainable faculty community that is now exploring new collaborations in service-learning, cultural diversity, community development, technology integration and teacher preparation as well as fast-track transfer agreements.

KCC Service-Learning faculty have taken the lead in developing new General Education Academic Skills Standards emphasizing “”Understanding Self and Society”" to prepare students for lives as civically engaged local, national and global citizens. The UHM College of Arts and Sciences is drafting a new mission statement which emphasizes preparing students for lifelong active learning, productive careers, personal enrichment, involved citizenship, and the challenges of the future. Thus, for KCC and UHM, service-learning is not only changing how we teach but leveraging institutional and curricular support for what we teach the skills and intellect for engaged citizenship.

A recent Carnegie Foundation external assessment states, “”It would be wonderful if all community colleges would take up the challenge that KCC has set for itself: to educate all students to understand the connections between their learning, their work, and their larger communities, and to help them take seriously their role in improving those communities.”"

Contact person: Carol Hoshiko, Dean of Business Education, Food Service, Travel Programs and Community Linkages, hoshiko {at} hawaii(.)edu

From Service Matters 1998: Engaging Higher Education In the Renewal of America s Communities and American Democracy

web site: http://www.iupui.edu/~floc/home.html

e-mail: floc {at} topaz.iupui(.)edu

From Service Matters 1998: Engaging Higher Education In the Renewal of America s Communities and American Democracy

Contact: Community Service Director Dr. Mark Levine at Mark_Levine {at} uml(.)edu

From Service Matters 1998: Engaging Higher Education In the Renewal of America s Communities and American Democracy

Website: http://ecampus.bentley.edu/dept/bslc/new/03/05/main.htm

All of the students who participated in the six-month project were refugees who had completed basic ESL classes and had relatively good English-language skills. The students were required to provide a minimum of eight hours of service per month by assisting county social service workers with a variety of tasks, including:

Interviewing new applicants to the county social service system;
Reviewing applications and assisting new clients to complete applications;
Directing clients to the appropriate county office or staff person;
Assisting clients to access county information;
Speaking to county employees about the culture, family dynamics and health/medical worldview of the student s country of origin;
Speaking to community groups about services available through the county;
Speaking to residents about county programs and various educational programs available to them.

The county s social services agencies benefited by having refugees from a number of different countries working with them. Hennepin County is experiencing a dramatic growth in the number of refugees seeking services. Through their interaction with our students, the county workers were able to gain insight into the culture, values and traditions of these new clients. The students, through interaction with the county staff and their clients, learned different speech patterns, intonation and slang and significantly improved their language skills.

At the end of the project, and as the final requirement for the speech class, students were required to give a speech about their experience. Staff and supervisors from Hennepin County attended, as did faculty and administrators from the college.

As we begin the next century, the nation needs contemporary versions of older “”mediating institutions”" that once tied waves of immigrants to American democracy– tapping into their rich cultural traditions and releasing their potential to help build the nation. The Jane Addams School for Democracy, a community-based education and action initiative, offers a promising experiment.

Today, immigrant policy accents service delivery– be it of language classes, job training, or welfare provisions. In this approach immigrants are perceived as deficient, needy, and powerless. The role of organizations is to provide services for them.

Mediating institutions such as Jane Addams’ Hull House settlement in Chicago — which worked with immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe and Mexico in the early decades of the 20th century — once taught something quite different. They inculcated new Americans with a sense of the importance of building, contributing to, and improving the nation.

Such institutions helped immigrants develop what can be called “”public identities”" — teaching the skills of give and take, instilling the importance of working with people different from oneself, fostering a commitment to democracy, and holding citizens accountable to common standards. While even at their best they excluded many people, they provided a reserve of civic capital that the nation could draw on. For immigrants, they created pride in being American citizens and highlighted the ways in which immigrant cultures could enrich America.

The Jane Addams School for Democracy — located in Neighborhood House, a 100-year-old settlement on the West Side of St. Paul — takes the best of this forgotten spirit and updates it for a new era. It was created as a partnership among Hmong and Latino residents, Neighborhood House, the College of St. Catherine, the Center for Democracy and Citizenship at the Humphrey Institute, and the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Minnesota. The founding idea was to develop a community partnership through which college students and immigrants alike could learn and work together.

The theme of the Jane Addams School is “”everyone is a learner, everyone a teacher”". New immigrants and their children join with high school and college students in learning about citizenship and democracy (including preparing for the US Citizenship Exam), the English language, and American culture. Now, after two and a half years, nearly 200 people are learning and working together on public projects. Young people and adults have undertaken farming projects, community gardens, plays, skits, a history book, a health and wellness project, and other work. The school has initiated an annual community-wide “”Freedom Festival”" celebrating diverse contributions to liberty and democracy. In addition, more than 50 immigrants have passed the citizenship exam and many have returned to the School both to continue learning and to help other immigrants learn the ways of American citizenship.

The work of the school has made vivid the traditions of productive citizenship that immigrants bring to this country. In the words of one Jane Addams School participant, Mai Neng Moua: “”America is in the making. It isn’t a complete picture, and whoever comes adds to it.”" Organizations like the School can help all citizens draw a brighter and more vivid picture of a united nation and a re-energized democracy.

Excerpted from “”The Jane Addams School for Democracy”" by Harry C. Boyte and Jennifer O’Donoghue for Bluprint Magazine, April 1, 1999

Service learning at Concordia University, St. Paul is incorporated into the curriculum in a variety of ways. As in many institutions, some professors and some courses lend themselves more effectively to such academic involvement in community issues. For example, students in the College of Education and Director of Christian Education (DCE) programs complete 100 service learning hours as part of their Human Relations course requirements.

Among the many service learning opportunities available, students may assist in the classrooms at neighboring Higher Ground Academy, tutor students at Central High School or work with teens in the Future Force program. Particularly helpful is nearby Skyline Towers, a low-income housing development at which more than a dozen different languages are spoken. Students have been involved in research about the challenges and strengths of new immigrant families. One recent student, as a result of her participation in this type of research, changed her vocational goal from being a family counselor to being an international family counselor. Other students have conducted research and interviews to gain a better understanding of the relationship of immigration, global economics and global politics. Through education courses students are better able to understand the changing challenges in education and the different learning styles of individuals. They also become aware of how community and family pressures have an impact on learning.

Concordia University faculty and staff lead by example, making it clear to students that involvement and commitment are the keys to civic responsibility. Concordia encourages its entire campus community of students, faculty and staff to connect with their campus and their community, thereby building a solid foundation on which to build a life of service to others.

On many campuses, however, the greatest barrier is the one that goes almost entirely unspoken: the barrier between students and staff. Ironically, the staff who are critical to keeping the institution running day in and day out, are too often nameless faces to students who benefit from that institution.

At St. Thomas Aquinas College, the community service office initiated an effort this year to bridge that gap. St. Thomas Aquinas is located in a small town north of New York City. A large contingent of the workers at the school come from the town s large population of recent Haitian immigrants, many of whom are seeking education in English as a second language.

At the beginning of the school year, Sister Catherine Morgan, the community service director at St. Thomas Aquinas, first approached the director of the college s food service and cleaning staff. He agreed to grant workers paid time during work to study with a tutor. She then approached a professor in the college s education department, and asked if teacher education students would be able to tutor college staff towards the fulfillment of field work requirements. The professor not only agreed to the idea, but volunteered to coordinate student placements in the program.

Having already bridged gaps between the community service office, university food services, and the education department, the project went on to bring students and staff together. Eight students met with eight staff members once a week for brief tutoring sessions. Students in the program received training in ESL instruction, and were given the flexibility to design tutoring sessions to meet staff members needs.

For many students and staff, this was the first time that they interacted with one another. In some cases, a sense of community has formed crossing boundaries that once had gone unquestioned. One example comes from a teacher education student: upon hearing that the staff member she worked with had just lost his brother in a car accident, she helped to organize a fundraiser in the education department to raise money for the deceased brother s family.

From Service Matters 1998: Engaging Higher Education In the Renewal of America s Communities and American Democracy

Project Overview developed through Bloomsburg University Strategic Planning Funding from 1996-98. The Migrant Community Project established an alliance between Bloomsburg University, the SOLVE Office, the Admissions Office, the Central Susquehanna Intermediate Unit Northeast Migrant Education Program and other agencies that service the migrant population in this region. This alliance provides a wide range of meaningful opportunities for Bloomsburg University faculty and students including research, service-learning, internships, teaching, mentoring, tutoring and program development.

To date, professors and their students from Curriculum & Foundations, Anthropology, History, Languages & Cultures, Nursing, and Sociology & Social Welfare and various athletic coaches and their players are involved with The Migrant Community Project.

Three annual campus events are crucial to The Migrant Community Project: the Spring Northeast Migrant Family Day, the June Student Leadership Overnight, and the Fall Student Leadership Day. This year, six Migrant Ed students are enrolled in the Congressional Awards through Senator Santorum and our Student Leadership Overnight fulfills one of the requirements. These events are invaluable for the migrant population as well as for Bloomsburg University. Students participate in organizing the conferences, facilitate workshops, and serve as mentors throughout the day.

The Migrant Community Project provides opportunities for faculty and students and supports the University’s strategic goals. This “”out-of-classroom”" learning experience prepares students for careers, improves relationships with community organizations, challenges students to perform at their highest academic potential, allows them to explore other cultures and helps foster mutual respect and understanding. Likewise it improves the quality of teaching and fosters interdisciplinary education and research at Bloomsburg University.

Contact person: Dr. Susan Dauria, Anthropology Department
Information online at www.bloomu.edu/departments/anthro/prog.html

A partnership with Portland public schools’ Migrant Education Program engages PSU students in teaching and tutoring migrant and Title 1 students. PSU also has partnerships that serve the Portland refugee community, such as SOAR (Sponsors Organized to Assist Refugees) and IRCO (International Refugee Center of Oregon). Students assist refugees who have recently arrived in Portland with language acquisition and navigation of community resources.

A course in contemporary American Indian policy has students interview tribal government members, tribal resource managers, and health care providers to produce a “”Handbook of Indian Affairs in Northwest Oregon”". The handbook is distributed to public policy practitioners who may lack a deeper understanding of Indian Affairs.

Website: www.pdx.edu

Excerpted from Diversity Digest Summer 2001