In Fall 2001, nine English 111 students opted to do the service learning projects.  Links to the web folios of these students, which contain all of the graded paper assignments the students wrote for the course, are indexed below. (When accessing the web folios to view student work, click on the x box  or the ^ box in the top right corner of the advertisements to dispatch them. Advertising is the drawback of a "free" web page hosting service: someone has to pay for it.)

Laura Clement volunteered to work at Cat Corner, a feline rescue and shelter organization in Hampton. Her service learning project final was a web site that she developed for the agency: Cat Corner.

Heidi Griswold worked with PORT, a homeless shelter in Newport News, writing about the director of the parent agency, LINK; chronicling her own volunteer experiences in a journal; and petitioning the community with a letter to the editor of the Daily Press in behalf of LINK and PORT.

Diane Stephens volunteered with the Colonial Coast Girl Scouts Association, as a direct result of which, she plans to volunteer to become a troop leader in the future.

Four students volunteered with In-SYNC Partnerships (Innovations for Schools, Youth, Neighborhoods, & Communities), a joint program administered by the Hampton City Parks and Recreation Division and Hampton City Schools.  Three of these students tutored elementary school children at one of three Hampton locations in an after-school tutoring program.  I was impressed by the creativity each student brought to their tutoring tasks and gratified by the positive comments that each had about the experience of working with the children. The tutors were Cristen Honeycutt, Kimberly Novotny, and Eric Whipple.   In addition to tutoring, Les Stanfield worked at the administrative offices of In-SYNC, and his service learning final project was a smashing newsletter that he developed for the program using Microsoft Publisher.

Joanne Robinson and Summer Chambers volunteered with Peninsula AIDS Foundation and were put to work assisting with one of the PAF's major fundraising projects, sponsoring BINGO games at BINGO City in Grafton.

The service learning projects were a very successful experience for the students who opted to do them. In comments in their reflective journals or in their course evaluations, all of these students stated that their volunteer experiences far exceeded their expectations, that they gained much knowledge about themselves from doing them, and that they would do the same sort of volunteer service again, even if they did not receive course credit for it.  Here are excerpts of some of their comments:

Of tutoring with In-SYNC Partnerships:

Kids and I getting along was amazing, because I never really got along with kids.  We did so many activities and time flew by really fast.  I really liked the fact that all the children looked up to me.  I tutored two students for the most part, and I was not sure if I helped them.  Then the next week they got their math tests back and they both received a good grade.  It really felt great to influence the future of my community.  A lot of people have influenced me and I thought I needed to return the favor.

 After the first few weeks of tutoring Imani, Janae, and Chelsey I felt like I had accomplished something.  The girls look forward to seeing me, and Mrs. Baker said that they are accomplishing more in class.  I have really enjoyed helping them out because I know how hard it can be and sometimes you just need a little push.

I really started to enjoy the community service because of the overwhelming feeling that I was actually making a difference and possibly changing the ways that the kids thought and acted.

I am enjoying this so far and seriously plan to continue this as my time between
school and work allows.  It has been a great experience so far.  I would recommend that everyone try something of this nature.  It gets to be almost a stress relief too.  So overall I have thoroughly enjoyed my experiences with volunteering.

During this experience, (volunteering with PAF) I had a chance to work with the head coordinator of volunteer services, Stacey Posey. She is certainly a brillant and caring woman. I learned a lot about the disease and how it affects people and our society. I understand now, by working with this agency, that people affected by the disease are as human as anyone else. They need friendly people there that they can confide in.  The lesson I learned from that is that all people need to be treated as equal, no matter what their illness is.

For the most part it (volunteering with PAF) was a great experience, and maybe next time I will volunteer at a children's center. This way I can learn more about the career field I want to go into.

The time I spent volunteering passed very quickly.  The experience was something I will never forget.   The time Jared and I  spent together at that shelter, (PORT homeless shelter) we will always treasure.   I am so glad we had this opportunity to help other people and I hope we never take for granted all the wonderful blessings God sends us.

Even though I only have four volunteer hours left to complete my requirement for my English class project, I feel that I will probably continue to volunteer more of my time to this organization.  (Colonial Council of GSA)

Several more students in English 111 said that they would have done the service learning projects instead of the career exploration track if there had been models to follow--work written by students from previous semesters. Service Learning is an opportunity for you to challenge yourselves to learn outside of the classroom, to learn the most important things about what motivates you as an individual, to have a positive impact on your community, to enhance the image of TNCC, and to feel good about yourselves in these troubling times through providing service to your fellow Americans and favorably influencing the lives of others.  Nothing that students learn in college can be more important.

R. Dollieslager's English 111 main page