HOW SERVICE BUILDS CHARACTER

Outline for Character Education Workshop
by Lori Butterworth


To bring this workshop to your school or group, please contact: The Boomerang Foundation

Meaningful partnerships with community nonprofit organizations can help young people build confidence in their ability to have a positive, direct impact on issues that are important to them. In this lively, humorous and interactive session, you’ll learn about what nonprofits are looking for…and not looking for… in teen volunteers. Participants will come away with a philosophical framework and practical tools that can be used to create community service programs that are aligned with the goals of the nonprofit sector.

Background/strategies/goals:
Imagine youth taking leadership roles within nonprofit organizations to address emerging community needs. Imagine that any young person with an idea to make the world a better place is supported by nonprofit organizations willing to invest in and encourage their success.  

Unfortunately, many well-intentioned teens find it difficult to connect effectively with nonprofits. And, many nonprofits lack the time and resources to support the community service requirements of students. Imagine how we might bridge that gap by:

• Helping young people engage with nonprofits in creating solutions to emerging issues,
• Demonstrating strategies and tools that help students communicate effectively and clearly with nonprofits,
• Aligning the purposes of students participating in service with the needs of nonprofits,
• Enabling students and nonprofits to discover together how community service builds character in young people, and thereby
• Multiplying the positive effects on the future of communities, and the students themselves.

Character and Service
Nonprofit organizations want teen volunteers with strong character, self-confidence, initiative, and commitment. If educators can provide practical tools that enable students to present themselves to nonprofits in positive ways, students are more likely to be met with enthusiasm from nonprofit organizations.

Using the Character Education Partnership's 11 principles of character education as a guide, participants in the session will explore ideas about how students can effectively introduce themselves to nonprofits. The session demonstrates three tools designed to help students present themselves professionally and clearly to nonprofits with which they hope to participate and/or volunteer:

1. Personal Mission and Values Statement
2. Community Service Resume Builder
3. Service Project Planner

By introducing themselves clearly, professionally and respectfully to nonprofit organizations, high school students experience more success in finding and connecting with causes that they care about, thus enhancing their community service experience. And when young people are trusted by and engaged with nonprofits, community service will have its desired effect on the youth participants: character development.

When young people are provided with encouragement, information, support and tools, they will create a better world for themselves and future generations. Imagine.

There are three interactive activities in this session:
1. Small Group Activity (3/4 per group)
Using the Handy-dandy Mission Generator Machine® each group will generate a mission statement that could be used by a student. Facilitators will provide a mission statement formula, verbs and categories. The completed mission statements will be presented to the larger group.
2. Seven Groups Activity (large group divided by 7)
How do you spell SERVICE? Seven teams will brainstorm, define and prioritize character education word and phrases using the letters S-E-R-V-I-C-E. The entire group will draft a sample “Values Statement” using the words and phrases generated in the activity.
3. Large Group Activity
Using the Boomerang Foundation’s Resume Builder and Project Planner, the large group will create documents, then demonstrate how educators and parents might use these tools to guild students as they introduce themselves to nonprofits.

Background and rationale
The Boomerang Foundation’s mission is to ignite the power of young people to create a more compassionate world and to achieve greater personal success through meaningful community service. Whether community service is assigned as service learning curriculum, mandated for high school graduation, used for college admission, career enhancement or ordered by the court, teens can find inspiring ideas and practical tools, which apply sound business practices and strategic philanthropy to community service.

Social Change Theory: The national call to service asks all of us to increase our volunteerism and posits that the combined efforts of our nation’s citizenry can bring about positive social change. This intended change will not be realized without the full engagement of teens using their ingenuity to create meaningful community service that has a tangible impact.

Unfortunately, for many high school students, assigned community service can be an onerous, abstract concept, especially for those who are not identified leaders or lack self-motivation.
When young people are required to “get their community service paper signed” without support or guidance, the experience can be counterproductive producing cynicism and disillusionment where compassion was intended.

With the tools and support offered by The Boomerang Foundation, community service can have a profoundly positive influence on the academic performance, self-esteem and professional potential of teens, helping them partner with nonprofit organizations as full participants and innovators.

Lori Butterworth is the founder of three successful nonprofit organizations: Jacob’s Heart Children’s Cancer Support, Children’s Hospice and Palliative Care Coalition and the Boomerang Foundation. Lori has received many awards for outstanding nonprofit leadership, among them Oprah Winfrey’s Use Your Life Award in 2001, the California Association of Nonprofits Award for Excellence in Program Design in 2007 and Woman of the Year for Santa Cruz County in 2007 for successfully passing legislation which restructure the hospice benefit for children.