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(Washington, D.C.) – With a goal of improving academic achievement, reducing risky behaviors, and increasing civic engagement, Learn and Serve America today announced $37 million in grants designed to engage more than one million students nationwide in service-learning projects at schools, colleges, and community-based organizations.
“Service-learning helps America pursue some of its most critical goals, from improving academic achievement to helping youth from disadvantaged circumstances succeed in school and in life,” said David Eisner, CEO of the Corporation for National and Community Service, which administers Learn and Serve America. “Service-learning is already practiced in one-third of America’s schools – we want to grow that to half of all schools by the year 2010.”
In total, 109 grants were announced in four categories: competitive grants to institutions of higher education; competitive grants to K-12 schools; competitive grants to community-based organizations; and formula grants to state education agencies. All are “new” grants, meaning that they are for the first year of a three-year grant cycle and are renewable annually pending compliance with grant provisions and availability of funds. For a full list of grants, please click here.
Overall, Learn and Serve America received a record 504 competitive applications, requesting a total of more than $162 million. Of the $37.1 million in available funds, approximately $19.1 million was available for competitive grants; the remainder, by law, is granted by formula allocation to each state education agency for school-based service-learning.
“The high quality of the applications made the selection process extremely challenging,” said Amy Cohen, director of Learn and Serve America. “This was the most competitive round of new grants that we’ve ever seen. Many high quality service-learning programs could not be funded or could only be funded at lower levels than in the past.”
Cohen added that the decisions on which competitive programs to fund were based on several strategic goals that Learn and Serve America had set for its grant-making over the course of the past year. These programmatic goals, which were developed to support the Corporation’s newly adopted five-year Strategic Plan, include:
- Raising the percentage of youth from disadvantaged circumstances who are engaged in service-learning activities supported by Learn and Serve America from 40 percent to 60 percent.
- Engaging more than 50,000 college students in service as a catalyst for reaching the national goal of engaging 5 million college students in their communities by 2010.
- Helping to expand service-learning to more than 50 percent of all public schools by 2010, up from the current 33 percent.
“By being as strategic as possible, we hope to get the most of our available funds,” Cohen said.
All told, grants will be awarded to 51 state education agencies; 27 institutions of higher education; 19 school-based organizations, including 5 Indian tribes; and 12 community-based organizations. A summation of grants, by category, follows.
- Competitive grants to higher education institutions and associations. Approximately $9.1 million will be awarded to individual colleges or to statewide or national consortia. These grants help colleges fulfill their civic mission by supporting the development of courses, co-curricular programs, and faculty research designed to meet community needs and carry out partnerships with their surrounding communities. In addition, many projects enable universities to employ a greater number of Federal Work-Study students in community-serving roles.
- Competitive grants to school-based programs. Approximately $6 million will go to school-based programs to support the integration of service into the K-12 academic curriculum in a manner that enhances achievement of academic standards while fostering civic responsibility and directly meeting needs in local communities. Of this amount approximately $745,000 will be awarded to Indian Tribe programs.
- Competitive grants to community-based programs. Approximately $4.1 million will be awarded national, state, or regional nonprofits to support local youth service and service-learning programs, primarily during after-school, weekend, and summer hours.
- Formula grants to state education agencies. Approximately $18 million will be distributed to states and the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico to make service-learning part of the academic curriculum and to support training of teachers and service-learning coordinators, who incorporate service into academic settings.
Learn and Serve America is administered by the Corporation for National and Community Service, which also oversees Senior Corps and AmeriCorps. The Corporation’s mission is to improve lives, strengthen communities, and foster civic engagement through service and volunteering. Together with the USA Freedom Corps, the Corporation is working to build a culture of service, citizenship, and responsibility in America. For more information, visit http://www.nationalservice.gov.
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