Student community service program poised for expansion

Four years ago, some Rockland High School students decided to help an elderly woman by building a new porch on the front of her trailer.

They were working through Projects Inc., an organization that seeks to combine academic learning with community-based service.

The program is expanding to Orono and Belfast high schools next year to add a dimension to academic life.

When the Rockland students and their supervisor got to the woman’s home, they discovered a desperate situation.

She had no hot water, and microwaved cups of water for her bath. The electric box serving her trailer was a fire hazard. Despite the fact the woman had relatives living 50 feet away, she received no family love or care. She was disabled. She was alone.

The students called an electrician who fixed the wiring, with Projects Inc. picking up the $300 tab. The students also built the woman a new porch.

Helping her gave the students a chance to use their math and carpentry skills. It also gave them a lesson in the realities of dysfunctional family life.

“Some young eyes got opened quite wide. They got an idea what it’s like to be old and alone,” said Perry Gates, executive director of Projects Inc., which is based in Rockland.

In its 19th year, the program seeks to inject relevancy into high school curriculums by giving students an opportunity to help their community while applying the math, English and psychology they learn in the classroom.

“It’s academic rigor brought into experience,” Gates said, describing the service-learning aspect of the program.

Next year, Orono High School and Belfast Area High School each will receive a $5,000 stipend from Projects Inc. In each school, the money will be matched by an additional $5,000 in local funding.

In Orono, the money will pay for a coordinator to oversee a service-learning program tentatively planned for all high school students. The program, will provide community service projects for freshmen, a mentoring relationship for sophomores, and a community-service action plan for juniors and seniors.

In Belfast, high school students will expand a peer-leadership program already in place in some grades.

Examples of programs, Gates said, could include a hunger study in which students calculate the nutritional needs of elderly people in the community. As part of the project, students could work in local soup kitchens or learn about crop rotation as a method to resolve famine by working with a local conservation group.

In Rockland, the program got started because of a need to build handicapped-access ramps for elderly and disabled citizens.

Students have built between 350 and 400 ramps for local residents through the project, Gates said.

A free workshop on community service will be held from 9:15 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Friday, May 20, at the University of Maine Outreach Center in Thomaston. The center is located at the site of the old Thomaston Grammar School on U.S. Route 1.