High School Students Lead Way with Learn and Serve Grant

Created in 1993 by President Bill Clinton, the Learn and Serve project was to bring an entire range of community service projects across the nation under one umbrella. The action created the blending of services between AmeriCorps and Senior Corps to also create an opportunity for schools across the nation to participate in service projects locally, while teaching students the skills of managing funds and using them for worthy projects.

For the past two years, students at Peters Township High School have been heavily involved in local projects under the Learn and Serve program, and have administered their own program of grants and ways to raise additional funding.

Peters' participation in the program has been made possible through grants of $8,000 last year and $11,000 this year from the Learn and Serve project, through applications generated by Gifted and Career Coordinator Judy Alexander. The school then was required to create a youth-driven board to oversee the project in the schools.

“The service learning project is a methodology that employs five components,” said Alexander. “Among them are to investigate, to determine the need, plan the project, [take] action, reflect and celebrate the completion of the project."

Students who have been serving on the board include Matt Girouard, Josh Bowman, Karan Sharma, Carla Hoge, Juliann Gross, Jake Wilhelm, Jeremy Merich, Daniel Ketyer, Liz Palko and Ashton Fremer. The group created its own name — SPEARS, meaning Students Planning, Educating, Advocating, Reflecting Service.

The group then adopted its own logo, utilizing the Peters Township arrow through the sign of infinity.

Alexander said the SPEARS group began outlining the projects they wanted to accomplish, which led in turn to the creation of a mini-grant system to share the Learn and Serve grants within school projects.

The SPEARS group presented information to all buildings in the district and encouraged them to write “mini-grants” to fund individual projects, asking for their assistance in completion. Among the projects funded and completed were a garden at Bower Hill Elementary and a new entryway at Pleasant Valley Elementary.

In the Bower Hill project, the SPEARS team assisted with some of the heavier garden preparation, while students did the planting. The garden project helped the Bower Hill students to plant and harvest vegetables and donate them to the Washington County Food Bank.

At Pleasant Valley, the SPEARS students also taught the elementary students the fundamentals of composting.

Currently busy with an entrepreneurial project, the SPEARS group has been selling fruit smoothies to students, and with the money raised funneling it back into service projects for the schools. 

With the support of the Peters Township Board of Education, the SPEARS group has also invited area nonprofits to submit projects that will also assist them, as well as contribute to service learning for local students.   

“It’s been great because it puts the students in a role of management and they are the ones who actually develop the ideas,” Alexander said.

Among projects this year was the purchase of books for the service learning classes that students take. Other projects are still in the works, according to Alexander, who said the SPEARS students are always looking for projects to support.

"The money can be shared with teachers, students and classrooms who initiate ideas,” she said. "We’ve been talking with one classroom in AP English about some of the projects they might want to get involved with."