A Day of Service is an opportunity for students across the campus to come together in service. Some of my favorite times to do A Day of Service include new student orientation; club/activity fairs; Make a Difference Day in October; Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, Day and Week in January; and Earth Day in April. In reality, it can be any time during the year as community organizations are always in need of help. The people on campus who already serving are going to be the ones to help you plan this, but I have found that many people don’t serve because they don’t know how or where to get started. They often have an impression that their service has to be something huge – but it doesn’t have to be. They can serve in little ways that often lead to big ways. The goal of A Day of Service is to engage them in serving in whatever way they can.
A Day of Service is also a great way for clubs and organizations that have service requirements to get members engaged who might not otherwise participate. The whole club goes out together on the Day of Service and the members get to come along and participate without really having to think about it or plan anything. It will hopefully spark a commitment within them to continue serving and they may even come up with their own service project ideas.
When I work with schools on their Day of Service, I usually start with a 45-minute to 2-hour Building Leaders Through Service presentation where they learn all about performing service, its impact and its reward. I also like to arrange for everyone to participate in some small projects that I bring along with me called Quick-Stop service projects. They are simple table-top projects that students, faculty and staff can quickly do to show them the impact they can have when a bunch of people come together for service.
Here’s a sample of what the agenda could look life for the entire day:
- Building Leaders Through Service to start the day. This gets everyone engaged and on the same page early on.
- Do Quick-Stop projects right before lunch. These easy-to-do table-top service projects can be set up by me, the school or the organizations that the Day of Service is supporting. They include activities like making dog toys out of old t-shirts; making boo-boo bunnies out of washcloths for small children at hospitals, daycares, elementary schools; writing letters to troops overseas; assembling portable trash bags to help clean up the campus; creating holiday-themed items to be given to people in nursing homes; and coloring books marks for elementary school children, to name a few. Check out Service Fair on the Go! for more ideas or to bring me in to do this as a stand-alone program.
- LUNCH
- Afternoon service project – This is usually some sort of a larger service project that everybody works on together or a series of smaller projects where participants get to pick and choose what works for them. It’s a chance to work around the campus or around the community.
- For example, I did a project at the University of Tampa where half of the participants worked at a local food bank and the other half went to a thrift store to sort donations, put them on shelves and got it set up for a mission that uses proceeds from the sales to feed the homeless.
- In another example, we did a project for Hurricane Sandy relief in Hoboken, NJ at a local community center. About 35 students painted steps and railings and moved furniture from storage back into offices that had gotten cleaned up from the flooding. We sorted a lot of donations and took advantage of a further opportunity to distribute some of the donations, after they were sorted, to those in need.
- It can be simple things like going to senior citizens’ homes and raking their leaves, mowing lawns or finding areas in the community that need to be cleaned up that no one has paid attention to. You could even make it a big project like a Habitat For Humanity house. Paint the house, do some yard plantings, or whatever might need to be done at that point. It all matters.
- It’s a good idea to end the day with a celebration of some sort. I suggest you make the celebration really attractive: hire a band, massage chairs, caricature artists, etc., and set up inflatables (like a bouncy castle). The cost of entry into the celebration is that you have to have participated in the Day of Service. For those students, faculty and staff who didn’t participate in the service project but want join in the celebration, have some tables set up with the easy to perform quick-stop service projects and ask them to complete a couple of them as their entry fee to come into the party pr perhaps they can make a donation of canned foods or school supplies.
All of this – from education to service to celebration – makes for a great day of service that can really energize the whole campus community. It gives everyone a chance to serve, to network with people from other organizations, and see the potential of the members they already have.
To increase the impact, you can partner with local service organizations for your Day of Service or participation in the after-party. Have representatives from the community groups come in and explain what they do. You can even turn this into a Service Fair where they can set up tables during the service project, lunch or at the after-party. This will also allow students to sign up and participate with those agencies while you’ve got them excited about service.
“Anyone can be great because anyone can serve. All you need is a heart full of love and a soul full of grace.” – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
With this quote, I think Dr. King is telling us that our greatness will be determined by our service. A single day of service can mean a lot for your campus, your community, the world, and for you: by engaging in A Day of Service, you will have the opportunity to grow and develop from what you learn. Moreover, it is a good chance for people to come together in big and small ways.
If you would like to have me help mold serving leaders at your school, call me at 770-552-6592 or email me at DaveKelly@GonzoSpeaks.com. Click here to see all of my programs on Serving Leadership and Civic Engagement. I look forward to serving your students! Booking me will not break the bank – check out my Affordable Pricing Model for a quote! I look forward to serving your students!