Community Based Service Learning.

COMMUNITY BASED SERVICE LEARNING: WHAT I AM ALREADY DOING

         

             When my oldest child was in high school, she and many of her friends, were going to a teen center in town. Now all I heard from teachers and parents was how horrible this place was. However there is a hypocritial side to this: It is also where the school sent all the children who would not graduate due to many reasons, to attend classes at the Quest Program. The Quest Program is taught by an ex marine who I would never want to say boo to. So how ironic: on one hand it is a terrible place and on the other we will send your child there in hopes he or she will graduate! HMMM!!!! so I naturally went in to the teen center to get my questions answered.

         This was 3 years ago and what I found was a fantastic program that tries to overcome the issues that our children face today. The Junction Teen Center is a pilot program run on government funds that has a goal of helping children make good decisions so that they can become productive members of the community and society. The Quest Program is part of this and it has helped many kids graduate school that would not have other wise. So I began volunteering there. 

         Now what people need to understand is that every community has issues! In my area heroine has taken over at a staggering rate. Its the dark side of the Upper Valley. Many of these kids at the Junction have lived lives that many adults have not. No one cares about these kids. Many have criminal records already. Too many have either been thrown out by a parent at the age of 14 and are homeless. There are many who have either a parent incarcerated for a long time and the other parent is dead, or both parents are dead due to overdosing. These kids get labeled and then are in trouble in school so the school throws them out as well. This is the cold hard facts they face every day. The Junction Teen Center is the only place they can even call a home and often times the one meal a day that they get is provided by the center. 

         In the past few years I have volunteered, I have had 25 kids that call me MOM. Some have gone back to school and graduated against all odds. Some have come off drugs and alcohol abuse. Some are still homeless and sadly some are in prison because it was too late to save them. I still have hope that this will change. You can never give up on people, you can only understand why they made bad choices.  I do take it personally when they end up in prison. I feel I didn't do enough. But its not the case.

          Anyways the point is that Community Bases Service Learning does make a huge difference to the community and the people involved. I know this for a fact. I want to continue to research the idea of volunteering and volunteering at the teen center. If there was no teen center in White River Junction then many of the kids it services would be dead right now. We teach life skills, and job skills. So its worth while!