A Profile of a Lincoln High School
Service-Learning Project

Lincoln High School Volunteer Center
Lincoln High School, Wisconsin Rapids
CESA 5

Lincoln High School has run a student volunteer center for seven years, providing a place for students to come to match their interests and skills to volunteer opportunities in the community. The program also includes a number of specific programs, such as The Night Before Christmas (when LHS students and young children visit nursing home residents on Christmas Eve), Helping Out Begins at Home (in which students visit local elementary schools to encourage second graders to volunteer at home), Community Candles (in which students collected money to buy gifts for 250 needy children), Make a Difference Day, and others.

The volunteer center is staffed by six experienced volunteers on an hourly basis. These volunteers are encouraged to initiate various service projects. Two years ago, for example, they began producing a volunteer newsletter. The newsletter serves as a vehicle for student reflection, and is distributed to all LHS students in their Social Studies classes. Students also keep "community passports" in which they record their service experiences, and they do presentations to peers as well. Students (both volunteers and non-volunteers) evaluate the program at the end of the year by answering three questions: What is right about the program? What is wrong about the program? How can we improve it?

Several local nonprofit agencies determine community needs, and students then decide which needs they can best address.

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For questions about this information, contact Theresa L. Dary (608) 261-7494

Last updated on 2/25/2008 9:08:21 AM