Service-Learning Week

Service-Learning Week 2020
"Your Voice Matters"
November 2-6, 2020

Still Serving Safely During Service-Learning Week 2020!

Like many things this semester, Service-Learning Week 2020 will not look like it has in past years. Normally, this is a week full of special gatherings, a lecture in the chapel, daily tabling by the Service-Learning Leaders, and of course, multiple service opportunities. This week has been an important annual tradition at Concordia since it started in 2007 on the historic campus, and it will continue to be going forward.

With our current commitment to serving safely this semester, most of what we usually do as part of this week will not be possible, but we will still mark Service-Learning Week on November 2-6. Our theme is Your Voice Matters.

Justice-Focused Service-Learning and CTX Advocacy Network

This fall, as part of greater attention on Justice-Focused Service-Learning, we have been encouraging students to think about advocacy and the many ways that one can advocate. We started a new group within the Service-Learning Program this fall, the CTX Advocacy Network. We are still trying to connect with more students who have an interest in advocacy, so if you know of someone who would be interested in this group, please have them contact our Justice Focus Leader, Delina Yosief (Yosief@ctx.edu).

Service-Learning Social Media

Delina has also put together a social media campaign for next week to highlight different ways that individuals can use their voices and their hands to make a difference in our community, society, and world. All next week, through daily posts, she will share advocacy opportunities that connect to the service opportunities we already coordinate for the campus community. We’d love to have you follow Service-Learning on FaceBook, Twitter, or Instagram; please see how to connect with us below. Our posts will also be amplified through the main Concordia University social media too.

Join Us for November 2020 Opportunities

The Service-Learning Program is Still Serving Safely, and since the start of the semester, we have been coordinating and leading weekly service opportunities with a mix of virtual and outdoor in person opportunities, both on and off campus. You are invited to join us anytime, but especially for two opportunities, one in person and one virtual.

• Brookdale Assisted Living has been a service partner with CTX Service-Learning since we moved to the new campus. We miss being able to play games and socialize with our neighbors at Brookdale, so student leader, Victoria Leffers, developed the Read to a Resident Program as a way of connecting with the residents. Each week, including next week, you are invited to videotape yourself reading a poem, essay, or chapter from a book (anything that is in the public domain) to be shared with the residents. Join us in creating a video and submit on the Tuesday of Service-Learning Week (Nov. 3) or on a later Tuesday of your choice!
  
  
• Reveal Resource Center in Cedar Park provides food and clothing to individuals in our community. Right now, their clothing closet is closed, but they continue to distribute boxes on Monday nights. Our volunteers participate by directing traffic and loading cars with the boxes. All the activities take place outside with social distancing and masks required. Join us in serving safely on Monday, November 2, from 6:30 until 8:30 p.m.

Both of these events will continue to happen weekly. We also have a monthly Virtual Game Social with The Arc Capital Area on November 13, and we will be scheduling In Person Card Creation and Stewardship Service events on campus for later in November as well. For more details and to RSVP for any of our events, go to givepulse.com.

Holiday Assistance Donation Drive

We will be kicking off a Holiday Assistance Donation Drive for our service partner, Foundation Communities, on November 11. In the past, we have done a toy drive for the children we volunteered with in the after school program at Cardinal Point, a Foundation community, and so many of you have generously participated in past drives. This year, due to safety issues, Foundation is asking that we do not donate items but give monetary donations instead, and they will use the funds raised to give gift cards to families to purchase gifts. We will be sending out more information about this opportunity very soon.

Other Events

Election Day always falls during Service-Learning Week, and through the years, that has led to some robust discussions about civic engagement between our students and featured speakers. If you don’t get a chance to vote before early voting ends, then please VOTE on the Tuesday of Service-Learning Week. It’s an important way use your voice to serve your neighbor!

Although there won’t be a lecture next week, the Robert C. Greene Endowed Lecture in Service-Learning will take place as multiple lectures over several months with smaller groups.

Finally, on Friday, November 6, we have a very special announcement that the Service-Learning Leaders will be sharing through a video on social media. We’ll post in some other places too, so that everyone can see it.