Give a Day/Get a Day?

The Volunteer Center of Fond du Lac as a member of Hands on Network will be participating in Disney's Give A Day, Get A Day. The program begins on Jan. 1, 2010 and continues until 1million tickets have been claimed.

In order to qualify you must volunteer 8-10 hours of service with an opportunity posted through the Volunteer Center. Bear in mind a couple locally pertinent logistical items.

1. Tickets must be used before Dec. 15th, 2010.
2. If you were already planning a trip to Disney great! Don’t plan your trip around free tickets. If you are thinking that you will fly or drive, spend a day in the park and come home, be prepared to pay for admission. A lot of people live a few hours away from these parks! Tickets will likely be gone quite quickly.
3. The tickets are subject to black-out dates. You can’t get in free whenever you want.

These were just a few issues that I came up with for us Wisconsin folks that love getting things for free.

Don’t think that I’m trying to discourage you from taking part in this great program. Those agencies need your help. They aren’t creating opportunities for you to go to Disney, they are creating opportunities for you to make your community better. This reward is just a bit more magical!

and ONE VERY IMPORTANT NOTE: In order to qualify you MUST REGISTER through the DISNEY site!

Do Agencies Benefit from Service-Learning?

City-Wide Service-Learning Task Force of Fond du Lac met today. One of the goals set at the meeting was to obtain data on how service-learning benefits community based organizations (CBO). This data would then be utilized in approaching the community.

The board felt it important to determine whether service-learning benefits more then just students. It has been well established and documented that the benefits of properly done service-learning create multiple benefits to students in and out of the classroom. Far less documented and emphasized is the positive/negative impacts made on CBOs that provide service-learning opportunities.

Once the data is compiled, the board will then have a basis to approach local CBO. Provided with a reference, members of the board will have a basis to better determine whether service-learning could be of potential value to said CBOs. If value is determined then an understanding of service-learning needs to be provided to those recipients of service-learning students.

The data will also be utilized to evaluate the value of educating CBOs in service-learning pedagogy. Additionally, to determine the best practice of teaching CBOs...

• how to take full advantage of the service-learners
• how to determine if their opportunity would best be meet through service-learning
• other aspects as determined by the data

Note: A CBO self-assessment tool may need to be created or obtained.

Potential References: http://nationalserviceresources.org/pulling-it-together
http://nationalserviceresources.org/library/items/M0665
http://cc.bingj.com/cache.aspx?q=impact+of+%22service+learning%22+on+participants+in+%22community+based%22+organizations&d=4772451735636493&mkt=en-US&setlang=en-US&w=f0ee198c,da1e180c
http://nationalserviceresources.org/library/items/R1396
http://nationalserviceresources.org/library/items/M2413
http://nationalserviceresources.org/library/items/R1803
http://nationalserviceresources.org/library/items/R0544
http://nationalserviceresources.org/library/items/M0239
http://nationalserviceresources.org/library/items/W0042
http://nationalserviceresources.org/library/items/R1174
http://nationalserviceresources.org/library/items/R0283
http://nationalserviceresources.org/library/items/M0089
http://www.service-learningpartnership.org/site/DocServer/partnerpower.pdf?docID=961