Campus Name
College of Saint Benedict (Saint John's University)
Saint Joseph, MN ((see Serve 2.0 Mini-Grant Map)
Campus Contacts
Lindsey Cermak / lccermak@csbsju.edu / 952-237-2068
Marah Jacobson-Schule / mjacobsonsc@csbsju.ed / 320-363-5117
37 South College Avenue, PO Box 219 • St. Joseph, MN
http://www.csbsju.edu/servicelearning/
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Issue Focus Area(s)
Homelessness (in the St. Cloud community)
Brief Overview
CSB has chosen to focus on the issue of homelessness in the St. Cloud community. Many currently living in homelessness have met this reality unexpectedly. The College of St. Benedict and St. John’s University can easily act as a sheltered environment for students who do not take the initiative to go beyond campus boundaries. The mission of our colleges is to “provide the very best residential liberal arts education in the Catholic university tradition. They foster integrated learning, exceptional leadership for change and wisdom for a lifetime.” We hope to further bridge the gap between our college students and the community, in addition to our existing Service-Learning Program, through this Serve 2.0 initiative. It will not only serve as a means to raise awareness on our campuses about a prevalent issue in the St. Cloud community, but it will also serve to foster a sense of unity among our first team of Bonners, as they will be helping with the planning and the implementation of this initiative.
CSB has chosen to partner with Place of Hope, which offers shelter, housing, food, educational activities for children, and other services in St. Cloud, MN. CSB will utilize Web-based tools to promote students' awareness and involvement in service for the homeless by:
- making videos about the homeless and Place of Hope's work
- posting videos on their campus wiki and promoting awareness on campus
- organizing and running a Hunger Banquet, Food Drive, and Empty Bowls event
- creating a Facebook page for Bonners and the entire campus community to publicize these events
- promoting volunteerism by the broader campus community and getting students to serve at Place of Hope
Key Community Partners
- Place of Hope and its Kids Hope Outreach program. Place of Hope is an organization that was started by a couple, aiming to help others who are suffering. Their mission is to rebuild, repair and restore, taken from Isaiah 58. Place of Hope offers the following programs: “immediate shelter (Church of the Week program) and permanent housing to those experiencing homelessness, providing food to those who are hungry, Kids Hope Outreach with meals, study, spiritual nourishment for those hungry in spirit through our Recovering Hope Discipleship program, times of hope to those in Jail and Prison, an opportunity to rebuild, repair and restore at our Living Hope Residential Center, and a place to worship God at our Sunday Worship services and other ministries.”
(see Serve 2.0 Mini-Grant Map)
Social Media Tools to Be Used
Facebook, videos, YouTube, wikis
Context and Rationale (Explanation of Tools)
We have chosen to use the following media: videos, Facebook and wikis. The use of videos is essential to provide a visual depiction of this issue to the surrounding community, and most importantly our campuses. Putting real, live human faces to the name of an issue takes it from being “out there” to “right here at home.” We will use our flip cam to make videos highlighting Place of Hope and showing our service-learning students and other community members in action. We will then post those videos on our campus wiki, our Bonner campus wiki, Facebook and YouTube. We will document our Hunger Banquet and post that as well. By posting to the various sites listed above we will not only be promoting unity on our campuses but will be sharing our story with the public. In addition, we will create a Facebook page for CSB/SJU Bonners and use it to invite our entire student population on campus to our Facebook group and our event(s). We will also include in our Facebook profile a link to our campus wiki to get the word out that we have a wiki page.
As a new Bonner school, we will use this Serve 2.0 initiative to our advantage to promote unity amongst ourselves as well as spread the word about Bonner. It will address existing gaps in communication between students as well as between students and Place of Hope. Place of Hope staff is extremely busy, which unfortunately results in students completing their service-learning project elsewhere due to lack of communication. The Serve 2.0 initiative will build on tools that we already have in place, such as our campus and Bonner wiki, our Service-Learning Program and the existing relationship between CSB/SJU and Place of Hope.
Link to Campus Organizing Strategies
As a new Bonner Program, CSB will also use this initiative to strategically build support and awareness of the Bonner Program while promoting campus-wide involvement and education about homelessness. They plan to organize a Hunger Banquet, get new volunteers for Place of Hope, plan and implement a Food Drive, and participate in a broader Empty Bowls event to raise funds.
Goals of Initiative
1. Plan and run a Hunger Banquet—get 50 people to come
2. Get 20 people to volunteer to stay up all night at Place of Hope for one evening each: 2 people per night for 10 nights
3. Create a video capturing service at Place of Hope and its mission
4. Create 4 videos documenting service and events
5. Post videos to Facebook, YouTube and wikis
6. Create Facebook group, invite campus and use it to promote events
7. Participate in a Food Drive
8. Participate in Empty Bowls
Key Activities and Timelines
Spring 2009:
- 2 Planning meetings
- April 1—Progress Report due
- April/May—Video of Place of Hope
- Aid in preparation and facilitation of Empty Bowls
- Prepare and Facilitate Food Drive
- Create Facebook profile and group
- Participation in webinars and other trainings
- Conference calls & networking opportunities with other grantees
Summer 2009:
- June 3-6—Summer Leadership Institute (Stetson University)
- Presentation at SLI
- August—invite people to Hunger Banquet
September 1
Fall 2009:
- 2 Planning meetings
- November—Fall Directors Meeting
- Complete 2 videos
- Recruit 10 volunteers to work a night-shift at Place of Hope
Spring 2010:
- 2 Planning Meetings
- April 1—Progress Report due
- Complete 2 videos
- Recruit 10 volunteers to work a night-shift at Place of Hope
- Evaluation
Summer 2010:
- June 3-6—Summer Leadership Institute (Berea College)
- September 1—Progress Report due
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