Service Learning Blog #3

1. Activism:
After kind of feeling like we failed at our service learning project with the Girl Scouts, we were put in contact with a church where we could help lead their youth group and teach them about leadership through games and fun activities. So on Dec 3rd and 4th we got to volunteer at the St. Matthews Church, which worried me a little at first but was actually really fun. On Saturday, St Matthews was having their annual holiday get-together where there is a movie and treats for the kids and dinner and a raffle for the adults, our goal was to keep these children entertained with various leadership games, for example elbow tag seemed to be a very popular one, we also played a few others like four corners and had obstacle courses that the children had to lead each other through blind-folded. On Sunday we got to be a part of the children’s youth group and Reverend Sonia taught us all about the month of advent and we made advent chains and also had the children cut out pictures and words from magazines about what they think a leader is. I felt that these two events were extremely successful and it was a nice way to end our service learning project, because we had so much fun.
2. Reflection:
In the book Youth Leadership: A Guide to Understanding Leadership Development in Adolescents, Linden and Fertman write that the true value of activities in relation to leadership development is that they provide adolescents with fuel for thought (54). I feel like on Sunday when we were with a smaller group of kids and actually had the chance to sit down and talk about leadership and how they can be leaders in their communities, we actually gave them something to reflect on and maybe change their perspectives on themselves. According to Linden and Fertman that in reflecting, adolescents acquire insights that allow them to build on their strengths and set goals in areas where they know they need further development (54). You could see by some of the pictures and words these children were cutting out that they had already had time to reflect on some of their future goals and what they think makes a strong leader.
3. Reciprocity:
Even though this was not our original goal of our service learning project, I feel like these two events were more successful than any of our other events because we actually got to interact with more than two children and got to see the various ways that children can become leaders within their peer groups and in certain situations. It also was interesting for me not being raised in a very religious family to see how these families and children interact in the church setting, everyone was very friendly and I really enjoyed working with Reverend Sonia and her congregation.

Word Count: 481
Works Cited
Fertman, Josephine A. van Linden and Carl I. Youth Leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Inc., 1998.