"I join you in wanting our children to not only be rich in skills, but rich in ideals. Teaching character and citizenship to our children is a high calling.”

—President George W. Bush

Learn and Serve America helps over one million students make meaningful contributions to their community while building their academic and civic skills. Our support and encouragement of service-learning projects is guided by four principles:

Meet the Nation’s Needs.  Service-learning projects put the talents and energies of America’s young people to work solving real issues in their communities; taken together, these programs make a significant national contribution. Learn and Serve America is committed to addressing the nation’s education, public safety, environmental and homeland security needs through its service-learning grants and services.

Improve Participants’ Lives. Students’ lives are enriched through service-learning as they become engaged in their own educational process, see the work they do benefit those around them, and become actively contributing citizens and community members. Learn and Serve America is dedicated to ensuring that our programs improve the lives of every participant, building academic, civic, and character excellence – and that participants develop a lifelong commitment to public service. Our programs and participants are highly diverse and we make every effort to increase the participation of disadvantaged youth in our programs.

Strengthen Communities. Service-learning projects bring together students, teachers, parents, and organizations to improve their community. By working together towards common goals, participants build trust and strengthen community ties. Learn and Serve America is committed to stimulating strong, sustainable partnerships among local schools, colleges, and organizations in order to improve communities’ abilities to meet their ongoing needs.

Continuously Enhance Management. Learn and Serve America is committed to improving the quality, reach, and sustainability of service-learning programs. We will continue to initiate improvements to our management structure that increase accountability, strengthen performance measurements, provide for an effective workforce, and put the needs of our educational partners first.