Campus Name

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Stetson University

DeLand, FL (see Serve 2.0 Mini-Grant Map)

 

Campus Contacts

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Anabal Torres / atorres@stetson.edu / 386-747-6296

Savannah-Jane Atkins / satkins@stetson.edu / 386-717-7878

411 N. Woodland Blvd. • DeLand, FL 32723

stetsonbonner.pbwiki.com

 

Add Photos Here if you'd like (select Bonner logo and replace, size to 65-100 pixels square)

 

Issue Focus Area(s)

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Youth Development/Empowerment (Education) 

 

Brief Overview

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Stetson's student- and youth-led program CAUSE will focus on the issues of youth development and empowerment.  CAUSE works principally in the African-American community of Spring Hill near the university and the Pierson Mexican farm-worker community.  CAUSE will integrate social media tools in order to build the capacity and structure of its youth-oriented programs and engagement of volunteers.  It will build out a wiki as a communication tool for its college students and youth.  It will use Facebook and other tools to recruit other students to serve in youth development roles.  It will also use web-based tools to expand its connections with other programs of its type, nationally (and potentially internationally).  It will also utilize tools to raise funds and build support among the broader community, such as with the local Rotary Club and Kiwanis Club, using pictures, videos, blogs, and wikis to document the program and its outcomes.  

 

Key Community Partners

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• CAUSE (the Campaign for Adolescent & University Student Empowerment) is a community youth outreach program founded by impassioned Stetson students seven years ago.  The program is a joint partnership between Stetson University the Boys & Girls Club of Volusia County and Youth Empowered through Sports Activities (Y.E.S.A.). CAUSE strives to employ the highest standards of “positive youth development” in the process of empowering local disadvantaged adolescents. 

 

• The youth program focuses principally on the historically African-American community of Spring Hill and the Pierson Mexican farm-worker community where the average family income is $14,500 per year and the average high school dropout rate is 45 percent.  CAUSE activities are determined by a Teen Council that provides leadership experience for about twenty-five local teens.  The activities—which include community service, recreation, and educational programs—continue to serve over one hundred youth each year.  The program places special emphasis on meaningful relationships between disadvantaged teens and college students.  Through these mentoring relationships, many at-risk teens begin to see higher education as a possibility.  The Stetson students, in turn, gain a wider worldview of poverty and a mature understanding of empowering service. 

 

Please feel free to add links to other web-sites from the partners, if they exist.  Also, if partners are missing from the map, email address info to Ariane Hoy at ahoy@bonner.org.

 

(see Serve 2.0 Mini-Grant Map)

 

Social Media Tools to Be Used

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Facebook, videos, YouTube, wikis

 

Link to Campus Organizing Strategies

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Stetson has already taken many actions to integrate the Serve 2.0 initiative and web-based tools across the campus, including for the Bonner Program but also for Student Life, other clubs, faculty, and other departments.  CAUSE is one of the strongest sites at which many Bonners serve (as a site-based team), and students are engaged in community-asset mapping as freshmen (using their stetsonbonner wiki for that purpose).  This initiative goes deeper, relying on the leadership of students to develop and carry out a plan for integration of web-based tools with this community-oriented program.

 

The CAUSE staff includes six talented students who will work together with the community's youth to implement the plan. One person on the CAUSE staff will be in charge of managing the wiki and videotaping big events and workshops we do with the youth. Another CAUSE staff member will be in charge of marketing CAUSE to Stetson students through facebook and blogs, in order to recruit more student volunteers. This person will also be in charge of marketing CAUSE events to the community. We will elect a youth panel to come up with ideas for video documentation. Stetson will also run workshops with the CAUSE youth to teach them about Web 2.0.  

 

Goals of Initiative

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•  Employ a student volunteer to create, supervise, and update a CAUSE Wiki
• Employ a student volunteer to work on web 2.0 marketing and fundraising
• Begin holding online meetings through Wiki to supplement normal weekly meetings
• Begin documenting CAUSE activities through photography and videography
• Organize Photos and Videos on Wiki and Facebook for use in Marketing, Fundraising, and Recruiting
• Make multimedia available to other youth programs on and off campus via wiki and Facebook
• Teach children to use these media 2.0 tools and empower these children to use them in everyday life. 

 

Key Activities and Timelines

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March 2009

Hire two students to implement social media tools 

 

April 2009

Begin secondary online meetings to increase communication and begin documenting CAUSE activities

 

May 2009

Hold seminar for students at Stetson University on how to implement social media tools

 

August 2009

Begin workshop with underprivileged children on how to use social media tools

 

Continuous

Update Wiki, Facebook, and other social media tools on weekly, if not daily basis 

 

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