Community Service-Learning Honored With National Award

The L’Anse Creuse Community Service-Learning Program received the 2004 Spirit of Service Award presented by the Corporation for National and Community Service on June 6 at the Points of Light National Community Service Conference in Kansas City.  Program coordinators, Ann Hart from L’Anse Creuse High School and Emma DeAngelis from L’Anse Creuse High School - North, were honored as the only community service-learning program in the nation to receive this prestigious award.

During the past decade, the district’s community service-learning program has grown to a 40-hour community service graduation requirement enhanced by a service-learning curriculum that is linked to the state’s education standards and benchmarks.  Hart and DeAngelis have mobilized the district’s program by generating resources from Learn and Serve grants, developing partnerships with non-profit organizations and agencies, assisting teachers with development of classroom service-learning projects and volunteering along side their students throughout the community.  Since the program began, the district’s students have contributed more than 400,000 hours of service.

During this past year the students collected clothing and household supplies for the needy on National Make-A-Difference Day, collected blankets for the American Red Cross Blanket Drive, donated food to the Macomb County Food Program and donated time and money to the Macomb County Rotating Emergency Shelter Team (MCREST).  In addition, students in the Building Trades classes built handicapped ramps for wheelchair-bound citizens, Health Occupations students held a blood drive for the American Red Cross and Web Design students developed a Web site for Harrison Township.  All ninth-grade English students at L’Anse Creuse High School wrote Valentine letters to veterans, thanking them for their contributions to freedom and delivered them to Veterans Hospital in Detroit. In the spring, the Select Reading class at L’Anse Creuse High School - North assembled 20 bicycles and donated them to the Macomb County Head Start Program. 

Through this program, L’Anse Creuse students are applying classroom lessons to the real world, exploring careers, developing citizenship skills and recognizing themselves as contributing members of their community.