Summary: The Sitka Tribe of Alaska will involve 250 participants, along with adult volunteers, in Learn and Serve America projects designed to increase and enhance intergenerational communication and cooperation. The Sitka Tribe of Alaska will partner with the Sitka School District, the Sitka Native Education Program, and the Sitka Boys & Girls Club to implement service-learning activities during and after the school day and on weekends. Learn and Serve America activities will include tutoring, distributing food to elders, serving lunch to seniors, visiting elders to do chores, training senior citizens on computers, recycling, and developing and publishing oral history booklets.

Summary:  The Northwest Connecticut Area Health Education Center (AHEC) will replicate its successful Youth Health Service Corps (YHSC) service-learning model by subgranting to Rhode Island and Mississippi in the first year and at least four additional states during the second and third years of the program. The Youth Health Service Corps uses a nine module curriculum to train disadvantaged youth to serve as volunteers in a health care setting providing them with significant career development opportunities in the health professions. In addition to providing volunteer service in a health care facility, youth are invited to participate in one of four service-learning tracks including emergency preparedness, nutrition, oral health, or a state-specific track, such as sickle cell disease peer education. By the end of year one, 360 students from three states will be involved in the program and by the end of year three, 1,920 students nationwide will be Learn and Serve America Youth Health Service Corps participants providing approximately 40,000 hours of volunteer service with 700 adult volunteers supporting these service-learning opportunities. Each of the nation's more than 240 regional AHECs is a potential Learn and Serve YHSC site.

Summary:   Serve DC is proposing to help address the high dropout rate (35%) among DC youth through service-learning. Projects will have two elements designed to motivate service-learners to stay in school: students themselves will identify the community issues to address and every project will include a community education component through which the students seek to raise the awareness and affect the behavior of their neighbors. Serve DC will offer subgrants to K-12 DC public schools. Serve DC will deepen and expand partnerships with universities, nonprofits and other streams of service.

Summary: The Florida Department of Education (FDoE) and the Florida Alliance for Student Service (FASS) at Florida State University propose a statewide Learn and Serve America school-based service-learning initiative that will engage 9,000 K-12 students to address several key identified Florida needs. FDoE will develop strong multi-sector partnerships in Brevard, Hillsborough, Miami-Dade, Lake, and Orange Counties and 13 small rural counties that will bring together public and private organizations to increase social capital in these communities through student service-learning. These partnerships will develop programs that will address the academic achievement of disadvantaged youth, improve environmental stewardship among Florida's youth, help communities prepare for disasters, help prepare future teachers to use service-learning as a pedagogy, enhance hometown security through youth-led training, and serve the diverse needs of 13 rural communities through an innovative partnership between the Northeast Florida Education Consortium and the Florida National Guard.

Summary: Learn and Serve Idaho will designate six Civic Education Schools of Distinction (one per education region in the state). Having achieved "advanced proficient" on the state's Civic Education Report Card, these subgrantee schools will serve as demonstration sites and provide training and technical assistance to other schools in the region on integrating service-learning and civic education.

Summary: YMCA of the USA proposes to increase youth leadership and staff skills in planning, executing, and evaluating its Learn and Serve America service-learning projects across the United States . YMCA Youth Voice-Youth Action will support local YMCAs in engaging, equipping, and empowering young people in their growth and development through three primary tools: (1) an interactive web-based tool for use by YMCA members across the country for assessing and encouraging civic engagement and service; (2) new training resources to assist employed and volunteer staff in the areas of civic engagement, service-learning, and asset development; and (3) a repository or digital library of training and other materials to help youth-serving staff integrate and implement diversity, developmental assets, civic engagement, and service-learning into leadership and other programs (including aquatics, health enhancement, sports, and outdoor programs).

Summary: The Engineering Projects in Community Service (EPICS) program is an engineering-centered service-learning program in which teams of undergraduates will work with disadvantaged secondary school students to earn academic credit for large-scale, multidisciplinary, multi-year projects that solve challenging technology-based problems for local nonprofit organizations. Learn and Serve America subgrants will team eight existing higher education EPICS programs (in Indiana, Massachusetts, California, and New York high schools) with national corporations such as Intel, Microsoft, and General Motors. This proposal extends a successful higher education model to high schools, improving math and science teaching and engaging disadvantaged youth.

Summary: KIDS Consortium, a non-profit organization, will provide sub-grants and extensive technical assistance to 15 school districts and schools throughout six New England states focused on the integration of service-learning into teaching and learning practice, school and district structures (i.e. professional development), and policy. In addition, KIDS Consortium will launch a campaign to share information and introductory service-learning training with schools and community organizations throughout the six state region. Workshops from beginner to advanced levels will be offered, along with professional development incentives to attract new teachers, school administrators, and community partners. Over three years, at least 40,000 K-12 students will be engaged in projects that address a wide range of local needs and problems and over 1200 teachers and 750 local school and community leaders will learn about high quality service-learning and options for sustaining programs. KIDS Consortium will continue to organize an annual “Student Summit” where students from across New England gather for two days to share projects and learn about issues. Free resources and information will be available on the KIDS website and a free newsletter will be shared annually.

Summary: The Maine Department of Education (ME DOE) will provide up to seven subgrants, in addition to their Learn and Serve America formula funding, to schools in counties with the highest poverty rates. Grants will be used to create a service-learning coordinator position at the state level and provide a thorough evaluation of the Learn and Serve America school and community impacts. The service-learning coordinator position will give service-learning high visibility around the state and provide opportunities to share best practices, expand website development, and analyze and use the results from evaluations. The ME DOE will create a new service-learning work-group with a long-term goal of creating policies that connect, support, and sustain service-learning as part of curriculum standards and other statewide education reform initiatives. Over three years, 25,000 students will participate in service-learning in Maine. State programs, policies, and initiatives will add service-learning as a model teaching methodology to achieve education standards.

Summary: With Learn and Serve America funding, the Massachusetts Department of Education will support and sustain community service-learning (CSL) activities that engage increasing numbers of at-risk youth in community service by connecting service opportunities to the curriculum, supporting youth leadership development, improving academic success, and strengthening communities to support young people. The Department plans to award up to 20 subgrants that will involve approximately 20,000 students each year through increased service-learning opportunities in school and after school; build capacity in communities to sustain community service-learning and solve community problems; and build a statewide network of community agencies and schools that support service-learning and the engagement of young people.

Summary: Hannahville Indian Community will involve 60 participants, along with adult volunteers, in Learn and Serve America projects including constructing a house to give to an under privileged family, growing a garden and harvesting fruits for food distribution to the community, making blankets that will be given to mothers of newborns, creating a walking trail, and selecting and making a product to sell in order to raise money to purchase books to donate to the children's wing of the local hospital. Program partners include the 21st Century Learning Center as the venue for after-school and weekend service and Big Brothers and Big Sisters to generate some of the adult volunteers.

Summary: The Michigan Community Service Commission, in partnership with the Michigan State University Extension office and Mentor Michigan , proposes to increase community-based service-learning and peer mentoring programming for disadvantaged youth in Michigan . Through 22 Learn and Serve America subgrants, 1,100 peer mentors will work with 1,600 younger youth over three years. Online and in-person training will be offered to the mentors and program coordinators. This program is designed both to reduce the gap between the number of disadvantaged children in need of a mentor (estimated at 3,300 in the state) and to develop programming providing peer mentors with a meaningful service opportunity that incorporates intentional learning objectives designed to help them grow in the areas of social development, citizenship, and leadership.

Summary: Search Institute and its partner, Interfaith Youth Core, plan to mobilize the faith-based community as a major resource for youth service, with millions of young people serving communities through America 's 350,000 churches, mosques, synagogues, temples, and other faith communities. This Learn and Serve America effort will support pilot projects in Minneapolis/St. Paul, Chicago, Philadelphia, and New Orleans to create and test a mobilization model aimed at involving more than 3,000 young people from many faith traditions in high-quality, asset-based service-learning. The new model will integrate three key elements: Search Institute's framework of developmental assets, or building blocks of healthy development; Interfaith Youth Core's model of interfaith youth service and mobilization; and effective service-learning in faith-based settings. Through the grant, Search Institute and Interfaith Youth Core will expand upon an existing curriculum, provide training, map community needs and assets, and implement service-learning projects in the pilot sites, and later offer the model to other youth-service and faith-based organizations seeking to engage young people in effective service.

Summary: The Heartland Foundation will build upon their youth empowerment approach that includes emPower Plant and Public Achievement programs. “Jumpstart” will provide competitive subgrants for 50 youth groups of middle and high school students to plan and implement service-learning projects in the four-state region of Kansas , Missouri , Nebraska , and Iowa . The subgrants, averaging $5,000 each, will be awarded to youth who have participated in a civic engagement curriculum and are proposing service-learning projects. A committee composed of at least one high school student, a college student, and an adult volunteer will assist in funding decisions at the local level. More than 500 community mentors, teachers and partners will work with over 3,000 youth in emPower Plant and Public Achievement service-learning activities to strengthen their student-led projects, learning, and outcomes.

Summary: The Montana Office of Public Instruction will fund six Regional Demonstration Centers throughout the state to engage 2500 youth and 200 adults in Learn and Serve America through its State Education Agency Formula funding and an additional 900 participants with this competitive grant. Subgrants will be made to high poverty areas and require activities to address the Indian Education for All Act. With this competitive grant, three additional school districts will be funded. Programs will develop Service-Learning Advisory Councils to steer the local service-learning efforts. Community needs will be determined locally and programs will focus on participants' school engagement in order to improve academic achievement.

Summary: The Fort McDermitt Paiute/Shoshone Tribe, in partnership with the McDermitt Combined School, will involve 165 participants along with adult volunteers in service-learning projects focusing on mentoring, preserving tribal culture, and supporting community/economic development. The project activities will include mentoring; teaching traditional dances, songs and chants, as well as making regalia in order to perform at local events and powwows; and attracting tourists and businesses to the local community by building an RV park, planning for an observatory and a pool and park facility at one of the local hot springs, and hosting stargazing events for local citizens and astronomers.

Summary: The National Indian Youth Leadership Project (NIYLP) will involve a minimum of 30 youth participants, along with adult volunteers, in Learn and Serve America projects in rural tribal and Native Hawaiian communities in New Mexico and Hawaii . The service-learning program is a train-the-trainers model, whereby high school students and community members receive Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) training and wilderness and urban search and rescue skills. The team will not only be certified volunteer first responders, but will also continue to train younger students and community members in these skills to form additional CERT teams in other communities capacitated to assist professional first responders in natural and man-made disasters along with search and rescue missions.

Summary: The After-School Corporation (TASC) is proposing Building Healthy Communities (BHC), a three-year Learn and Serve America program empowering youth to develop service-learning projects that combat childhood obesity. TASC will develop a service-learning curriculum; provide training and technical assistance; support service-learning activities for 900 to 1,800 K-8 youth annually at 45 after-school programs in New York City , New Jersey , and Philadelphia ; and strengthen and expand a network of youth-serving community-based organizations supporting service-learning programs. TASC will provide subgrants to Children for Children ( CFC ), New Jersey After 3 (NJA3), and EducationWorks (EW) to implement BHC.

Summary: The Historically Minority Colleges and Universities Consortium, in partnership with North Carolina Central University Foundation (HMCUC/NCCU Foundation) proposes to strengthen, expand, and anchor a multi-state network of faith-based community-based partnerships in several southern states, with a particular emphasis on the Delta region. This project, entitled Expanding the Faith-Based Network Service-Learning Programs, will partner with seven HMCU campuses and communities to increase the capacity of faith institutions to plan and implement after-school service-learning programs that improve academic achievement, develop civic and leadership skills, and reduce the drop-out rates of at-risk students (grades K-12) in the selected communities. These projects will be located in South Carolina , Georgia , Alabama , Mississippi , and Louisiana and will serve 1,500 students and generate 1,500 adult volunteers during the three-year funding period.

Summary: Addressing a need to enhance social awareness and reduce risky behavior among youth, the Cherokee Nation Learn and Serve program will strengthen communities through increased exposure to Cherokee cultural virtues. School-based service-learning projects will be implemented through 17 sub-grants awarded to K-12 Oklahoma Public Schools in the Cherokee Nation that involve young people working with community elders to restore the value of Cherokee life-ways and the practice of “Ga du di,” (or working together for the good of all). More than 3000 students and 500 adults will participate in service activities organized by Cherokee Heritage Service Clubs. A Tribal Youth Council will act as ambassadors to expand service-learning into new school sites and an Elders' Council will advise teachers and students on cultural values such as sharing, respect, cooperation, and inclusion. Primary partnerships will be with the Cherokee Heritage Center, the Cultural Resource Center, Boys and Girls Club, and local museums, libraries, and civic organizations. The program will also sponsor service-learning events in conjunction with Global Youth Service Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and the Cherokee Nation Education Summit.

Summary: The Institute for Global Education and Service Learning (IGESL) proposes to expand its Learn and Serve America homeland security program, Youth Organized for Disaster Action (YODA), throughout five states. IGESL will make 30 competitive subgrants to support 600 students in New Jersey, Maryland, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Alabama. YODA students will be trained to respond to disasters and will then work with 750 adult volunteers to identify and address local homeland security needs. Schools will partner with their local Red Cross, police, fire departments and emergency management agencies.

Summary: The Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) Learn and Serve will provide six school district subgrants in addition to the four high school programs funded by their Learn and Serve formula grant. A partnership with City Year will support recruiting school districts with high percentages of children living in poverty. District-wide subgrantees will engage students in high quality service-learning projects; provide educators with in-depth training and resources to implement projects; build strong school community partnerships; and create a sustainable service-learning network of schools, advocates, practitioners, local and state organizations, and youth committed to a lifetime of service. The plan includes extensive service-learning training and technical assistance with written reporting and portfolio presentation requirements. Over three years, 5,000 students and 500 faculty members will participate in service-learning to meet state needs.

Summary: The South Carolina Department of Education Learn and Serve America program has identified five school districts with high percentages of disadvantaged youth that will be matched with three previously funded districts to provide technical assistance for implementing and sustaining high quality service-learning programs. Working with the Richland School District Two, a national leader school in service-learning, and the South Carolina Association of School Administrators, the South Carolina Department of Education will enable five rural, high poverty school districts to provide high quality service-learning programs to 60,000 K-12 students as a way to improve academic achievement and promote active citizenship.

Summary: Tennessee Commission on National and Community Service (TNCNCS) leads a Learn and Serve America program that will mobilize 1,980 disadvantaged youth in after-school programs to develop methamphetamine drug-use prevention messages for their peers. Working in partnership with Governor Phil Bredesen's MethFree Tennessee , the Partnership for Drug Free America, Community Anti-Drug Coalitions Across Tennessee, and the Tennessee Lions Clubs, TNCNCS will train youth to develop messages designed to reduce risky behaviors among their peers. This program will provide 22 subgrants to two in-state after-school networks and target school districts with high numbers of at-risk youth.

Summary: In conjunction with their Learn and Serve America formula grant, the Utah State Office of Education will provide subgrants to local education agencies in partnership with community organizations throughout the state to engage 10,000 student participants each year in service-learning. The program will focus on addressing homeland security and providing youth from disadvantaged circumstances the opportunity to engage in service-learning to improve their communities. In addition, the program will reach out to new schools to train them in service-learning. While addressing community needs, programs will focus on developing student participants' civic skills.

Summary: Raising Student Voice & Participation (RSVP) is a new student engagement initiative of the National Association of Student Councils, a program of NASSP, which empowers high school student councils to involve entire student bodies. The program is anchored in the vision and beliefs of the National Association of Student Councils and also supports the NASSP report Breaking Ranks II: Strategies for Leading High School Reform. The RSVP process centers on student councils leading a series of four student summits led by council members and other student facilitators. Through the summits, all students in the school have an opportunity to express concerns on issues of importance to them and suggest meaningful solutions. In the final summit, an RSVP leadership team presents a Civic Action Plan and invites students to plan and implement civic-based projects suggested during the earlier summits. Schools receiving grants will send three-member teams (one adviser and two students) to in-state RSVP training. In year one, ten high schools in eleven states will receive grants (110 schools). Additionally, two-member teams of students and advisers, representing their state student council associations in 15 more states will be trained as RSVP instructors during the springs of 2007 and 2008. The cycle repeats in the fall of those years when those instructors will host RSVP trainings for 10 sub-grantee schools from each of their states.

Summary: Since 1975, the National Network for Youth (NNY) has championed the needs of runaway, homeless, and other disconnected youth through advocacy, innovation, and services nationally, one community at a time . NNY Learn and Serve America grants will engage youth ages five to seventeen in service to their communities through organized, structured programs during non-school hours. Project participants will enroll youth from the mainstream as well as those on the fringes because of homelessness or by virtue of having run away from home because of abuse, neglect, and/or serious family problems. Our partners are regional and state runaway and homeless youth association members of the NNY and include The Western States Network, Mountain Plains Network, Texas State Network, and Oregon 's Looking Glass Youth and Family Services. Twelve pilot sites will implement a community youth development model to reduce behaviors that pose health risks to youngsters. The work of approximately 450 youth and 120 adult volunteers has the potential to positively benefit more than 10,000 youth through peer/adult mentoring in a group setting.

Summary: The Coalition of Essential Schools (CES) Northwest plans to work with small schools in Washington and Oregon to integrate service-learning into the curriculum. With the support of Learn and Serve America, CES Northwest will engage expert coaches to work with nine schools that have already committed to the project to implement service-learning school-wide as a way to both meet local community needs and engage students in core academic content. Local community needs assessments identified areas such as hunger, historical restoration, academic success, environmental concerns, and housing shortages as targets for Learn and Serve America projects. Over 4,000 high school students will engage in service-learning projects, and recipient schools will develop replicable models to share with the network of over 800 small schools supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Summary: Through a Learn and Serve America program titled "Future Leaders of Watersheds" (FLOW), the West Virginia Commission proposes to engage 1,500 young people in identifying and remediating threats to water quality in 50 streams and rivers throughout the state. The Commission will make two subgrants to large regional organizations and 13 smaller grants to watershed associations, faith-based organizations, and after-school programs to support watershed stewardship activities. Outstanding students will be invited to take part in an intensive environmental summer camp that will prepare them to co-lead subsequent FLOW projects.

Summary: St. Stephens Indian School Educational Association, Inc. will involve 60 participants at St. Stephens Indian School (SSIS) and 40-60 adult volunteers in Learn and Serve America projects. Students in grades 6, 7, and 8 will research the Northern Arapaho tribal history and the land and animals that sustained the Northern Arapaho people. They, along with faculty and community members, will create a museum exhibit on the history of the Northern Arapaho tribe and its folk art and crafts. The Wyoming Wildlife and Heritage Center in Thermopolis, Wyoming has agreed to house the exhibit. The program will partner with The National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, DC, including travel to the Smithsonian to study the artifacts of the Northern Arapaho people.