Mentoring Programs- Apply Now!

by: Vanessa Ingram

There are currently open positions for mentoring programs in CCASL for the spring semester. These programs consist of activities that aid in improving the self-esteem and attitudes of children throughout the Spokane Community.

Here are brief descriptions of the mentoring programs available in CCASL:

    Zag Study Buddies (ZSB) is a two day per week commitment; volunteers can sign up for Monday AND Wednesday or Tuesday AND Thursday from 3-4:15. ZSB is an after school tutoring program working in the Spokane community at four local elementary schools and one middle school. The program connects Gonzaga student tutors with youth struggling with their academics to focus on school work and help with homework comprehension and completion. Student mentors meet the ZSB mentoring group at 2:45 each day of programming to travel to their school.

    SMILE is dedicated to improving kids’ self-esteem and building positive attitudes. Gonzaga mentors meet at the schools one day per week (Monday through Friday as available) for one hour from 4-5pm to participate in activities that focus on self-esteem, culture, physical activity, art, and science. SMILE works with the Express after school program at eight local elementary schools with students from kindergarten through sixth grade.

    GAME mentors meet once per week on either Tuesday or Wednesday for two hours from 7-9pm. GAME is designed to teach teamwork and good sportsmanship to local area middle school students. It uses social interaction and physical activity to increase the self-esteem and resilience of local students. Mentors participate in P.E. style games including dodge ball, basketball, volleyball, and a variety of other fun and physical games.

    Earthbound (includes Garry Gardening) meet once per week from approximately 3:30-5pm to conduct environmental awareness with local area middle school students. Earthbound runs after school programming that is fun and environmentally educational. It focuses on schools with high rates of free and reduced lunch to ensure that a lack of economic privilege will not lead to a lack of environmental awareness and appreciation. At Garry Middle School, mentors will also have the opportunity to work in the Garry garden and greenhouse to educate students about sustainability, healthy lifestyles and gardening.

(Source: CCASL mentoring webpage)

    Connections is a one-on-one mentoring program that works with middle school students (grades 7-8) from local Spokane Public Schools. Connections is designed to improve the academic and social success of its mentees. Connections establishes relationships between positive role models and mentees to help the mentees realize (and actualize) their potential. The goal is to aid the mentee in creating a vision for the future and a plan for how that vision can become a reality. Mentors and mentees participate in a variety of academic, recreational, and social activities. All Connections mentors attend weekly programming, visit their mentee once a week at school, and participate in monthly Saturday activities.

Those interested in applying should fill out the application by following the link below or looking on the CCASL website. For more details about the mentoring programs listed above, please contact Zach Reuter at 509-313-6828, zreuter2@gonzaga.edu.

The application only takes a few minutes to complete and the deadline is January 23rd, 2013.

Online application link: http://www.gonzaga.edu/student+life/Community-Action-and-Service-Learning/Mentoring/groupmentorapp.asp

Upcoming Service Opportunities

by: Vanessa Ingram

Here are some volunteer opportunities for you to get involved in the community. For information on these programs and more, please visit the CCASL house and request information on these programs and more.

CCASL is well known throughout the Spokane community and is in direct contact with many resources and volunteer opportunities that enrich the Spokane community and provide Gonzaga students with tools they can use to make a difference by giving time and effort to others. Listed on this page are just a few of the volunteer opportunities that CCASL currently has listed for anyone who is interested:

October 29- November 16, 2012

The Giving Tree is an event that provides the Gonzaga community with a special opportunity to sponsor a child this holiday season. This is a clothing and toy drive to sponsor mentees from Campus Kids and Connections as well as their siblings during the holiday. Visit Crosby Monday-Friday between 10am-3pm to pick up a tag and sponsor a child this holiday season.

For more information contact Bailley Wootton at 509-313-6821

October 31, 2012 Boys & Girls Club of Spokane County, Northtown Clubhouse Volunteers will help with the "Trunk-or-Treat" event, which offers a safe alternative on Halloween for over 1,000 kids. Different volunteer opportunities include leading carnival games, leading children during the costume parade, greeting guests and ushering children across the street in the form of crossing guards. Interested student should contact Jason Anderson at 509-489-0741 or janderson@bgcspokanecounty.org

November 10-11, 2012

 Special Olympics Washington (SOWA)

 Volunteers are needed on November 10 from 12:30-6:40pm, and November 11 from 9am-12pm. Volunteers are needed to help Special Olympics athletes on the bowling lanes, and transfer the scores from the computer to the score sheets for each game. Interested students should contact Jill Ives at 509-460-1371 or jives@sowa.org .

Male Leaders in CCASL

By: Vanessa Ingram

An eleven year old boy is addicted to pain killers and living in a dilapidated house along with several other youths who are forever trapped in an endless cycle of drugs and poverty.

When witnessing a situation like this, we as human beings cannot help but ask ourselves, what can I do to make a difference? Jeb Berg asked himself this same question when he attended a CCASL retreat during his junior year at Gonzaga University.

“I couldn’t unsee it, I couldn’t unknow, and I couldn’t unlearn that experience.”  He said as he described his life changing experience with CCASL. Berg had previously pursued a business degree and hoped to possibly acquire a job on Wall Street.

But since that retreat, Berg has devoted his life to his fellow man by serving his community and now works as the community outreach coordinator at CCASL.

For the past 19 years, CCASL has been the center of community involvement and outreach within Gonzaga University by providing service-learning opportunities, managing career volunteer programs, and referring students to other volunteer programs off campus.

Through CCASL, not only do students have the opportunity to make a difference through community service, but they are also given various leadership skills and challenges that have a great impact on who they are.  “It has really impacted me a lot…” said Alicia Hungerford, a sophomore who is serving her second year at CCASL.

Although CCASL has experienced a large amount of participation from the Gonzaga student body over the years, there is a scarce number of male participants in each program.

As a result, CCASL is always looking for male participants for volunteers, especially in mentoring programs where young boys are in need of positive male role-models.

After expressing his first experience with CCASL, Berg also gave his opinion as to why there is such low male participation in CCASL programs. “They try to avoid situations where they will be uncomfortable or seem uncool, but what they don’t realize is that it is in that uncomfortable situation where they begin to grow as a person.”

Jeb urges male students to consider joining any of these programs because it is a life changing experience that they will not regret. “CCASL is a place where transformation happens”, he continued.

The calling of service...

By: Angie Funnell 

“Tell me and I'll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I'll understand” --Chinese Proverb

 

The Center for Community Action and Service Learning (CCASL) reflects the values of community, hearth, justice, respect, transformation, and creativity. “Service requires people. Students and staff lead the programs, working with 150 community partners and volunteers. CCASL is run 50 percent by grants, donations and fund raising, and the university underwrites the rest,” said Director Sima Thorpe, who is fulfilled by sharing her commitment to social justice.

“Today our prime educational objective must be to form men-and-women-for-others; men and women who will live not for themselves but for God and his Christ - for the God-man who lived and died for all the world; men and women who cannot even conceive of love of God which does not include love for the least of their neighbors; men and women completely convinced that love of God which does not issue in justice for others is a farce.”  --Pedro Arrupe, S.J. Superior General of the Society of Jesus 1973, Valencia, Spain
 

Governed by a holistic Jesuit education, Gonzaga University provides students with the opportunity to explore the realm of service and decipher what service means to them. Assistant Director of University Ministry and Gonzaga Alumni, Michelle Wheatley said, “In terms of the Catholic Church’s view on service, I was always raised to believe that service isn’t something that we do but something that we are, by nature, because of our identity. God’s love inherently contains a mission in it—a mission to love our neighbor, and especially those who are least accounted for in our society.” 

Gonzaga students fulfill their calling to be the men and woman for others by getting involved with mentoring and co-curricular programs. Senior Tiffani Gonzales volunteers her time between CCASL's mentoring program Campus Kids, as well as dedicates her time at the St. Margaret's Day Care. Tiffani said, “For me, service places me in the position that we are brothers and sisters in this world, and that we are called to serve each other. We are the body of Christ, so service is an apparent reminder that we are working as a community to find a universal goal.” Tiffani address the significance of building relationships through the mentoring programs offered through CCASL. From a college student’s perspective, Tiffani explained, “We often get caught up in the rapture of the college life. Being around kids helps center me on the humility that we forget to exude or portray. It’s an important part of the human understanding. You forget to laugh, play, and be jovial.”
 

Coordinator of the CCASL mentoring programs, Zach Reuter said, “A really important piece about service that I learned over my undergraduate career is that the most effective service is not for others, it is with others. Service is not a job where you punch in and punch out, it should ideally be a time where you look forward to meeting a need or bridging a gap with the people who have called for that service.” Zach highlights the notion of Jesuit service- to be the men and woman for others. Zach said, “We are there to help them feel socially accepted, boost self-esteem, be an ear to listen, and a guide towards success. We may never see the benefit of the couple of hours a week we spend with these students but it may actually pay huge dividends down the road. Taking an honest interest in the people you serve with, sharing in their struggle (and letting them share in yours), shows that you care far more than helping a child with their homework as you constantly check the clock." Zach continued to share that he thought service was an enormous piece of Gonzaga's identity. 

Students desire to be the change they wish see in the world. The Center for Community Action & Service Learning provides Zags with a myriad of opportunities to embrace the social change that occurs when students are involved. For seniors, there are a myriad of post-grad opportunities as well, for more information contact: Molly Ayers at ayers@gonzaga.edu.

Visit the CCASL Facebook page to be more involved and website to check out more opportunities for you to be of service!!

Winter Wonderland

    On Saturday, December 3rd, the Mentoring Programs Winter Wonderland Party filled Cataldo Hall with smiles of joy. The Center for Community Action and Service Learning (CCASL) joined with a myriad of volunteer mentors to create a Winter Wonderland Party for over 350 kids involved in both Campus Kids and Connections programs. 

     The Winter Wonderland is a heartfelt time of fellowship for the student mentors in these programs as well as for the mentees and their family members. This event provided a time for mentors to bond with their mentee’s family and share in the Christmas holiday spirit.

      The Winter Wonderland provides an opportunity for mentees and their family to come and enjoy presents, crafts, eat pizza and bond with their mentor outside of the typical after-school setting.

      Senior Campus Kids mentor, Stefanie Watson expressed, “Seeing their faces light up for the simple activities that we take for granted is rewarding.” Mentors and mentees took pictures together and decorated frames that the mentees took home,  a reminder of the fun memories they shared at Winter Wonderland.

   
CCASL would like to thank Gonzaga's BBT (Big Bing Theory) vocal club for their cheerful performance. For more information check out CCASL's mentoring programs and ways to get more involved!





   

Justice in January- Cultivating Community Change

By: Angie Funnell 

    

        Based on the philosophy of the Center for Community Action and Service Learning’s Mission:Possible (M:P), CCASL is introducing a  new immersion program this upcoming January, called Justice in January. Justice In January provides a winter break immersion trip for Gonzaga University leaders and students where they can grow as individuals as they serve and give to others. Fostered in the Jesuit Philosophy of service, Justice in January strives to create awareness among student leaders of the significance of service in leadership with and for others. It is our goal that students involved will bring back to the Gonzaga campus an understanding of the lives of others far different from their own, which will draw us closer to comprehending both the possibilities and limitations of their own selves. 
    
     

       This January, three student leaders, nine participants, and staff advisor Luisa Gallagher will serve in Tacoma, Washington. The team will be living and working in the Hill-Top neighborhood. They will partner with the Guadalupe House, also known as the Tacoma Catholic Worker. While living in Jean’s House of Prayer, the team will be aiding the TCW in activities, working with homeless outreach, as well as working on a L’Arche Farm (with people with developmental disabilities). 
    
       

          

        Justice in January has three goals that are fostered around the Social Change Model of Leadership:         

• That students will reflect and understand more about their personal values, beliefs and motives

• To provide students with the opportunity of common purpose and to build collaborative relationships

• To understand solidarity with the poor & explore how our lives can be lived on behalf of others 

(Left) Chelsea Hunt: Logistics Assistant, Nate Garberich, Lauren Mills, Connor Brenes, Luisa Gallagher: Faculty Advisor (Right)

          Service provides a powerful vehicle for developing student leadership capabilities in a collaborative environment. Under the Social Change Model, leadership is viewed as a process rather ran a position. The model emphasizes the need to understand self and others in an effort to effectively create community change. The model explicitly promotes the values of equity, social justice, self-knowledge, personal empowerment, collaborating, citizenship, and service. Under the umbrella of these values, the social change model provides students and student leaders the opportunity to examine within the levels of the individual, the group and the community/society. 
    
      

The three student leaders are Seniors, Lauren Mills and Nate Garberich, and Junior Connor Brenes.

        Senior leader Nate Garberich said, “I like doing service because I find that it forces me to reflect on the reality of the human condition (basically we are all suffering in some way or another, and while that might sound quite negative, doing service further reminds me that humans are capable of coming together and transcending that suffering, turning it into something really powerful). I also like to serve because it humbles me and reminds me to be grateful for what I have. While service can be difficult (especially emotionally), I find that it is often super fun, giving me the chance to hear the stories of people who have had a completely different experience than I and also to hang out with peers.”

Senior Lauren Mills as well noted, that “Service means being one with those people you serve.” Lauren said, “It doesn’t make me a better person to do these things, it just means I can learn from those around me and the opportunity that service gives me.” 

    

       Nate said, “In my opinion the mission of Justice in January is to bring together a group of students who hold a variety of different leadership roles to spend a week doing service and reflecting on leadership. Our hope is to structure the week around the Social Change Model, which looks at the individual, the community, and the society as a whole. We hope participants will walk away more aware of their leadership style, more confident that they can ignite social change, and better able to work with other different leaders when back on campus.”

    

       The Justice in January program will have the privilege to grow, learn, and initiate change in themselves and in the society that they are serving.

The RED Ribbon

    

30 years after the first cases of HIV – the red ribbon is the universal symbol of awareness and support for those living with HIV. The red ribbon was the first ever ribbon symbol, inspiring later versions such as the pink ribbon for breast cancer awareness.     

On December 1, 2011 CCASL will be celebrating World AIDS Day. An AIDS resource table will be set up between 9am and 11:30am,  in the main lobby of the Crosby Student Center. The afternoon will conclude with a presentation from noon to 1pm. 

The World AIDS Day campaign this year is focusing their efforts on "Getting to Zero": Zero New HIV Infections, Zero Discrimination and Zero AIDS Related Deaths. 

Be aware and knowledgeable about HIV and AIDS. The discussion will be facilitated by a power point about AIDS service learning and service work. There will as well be a presentation from FaceAIDS abut the local AIDS community and some of their global efforts. 

ACT UP and raise awareness and support through the facebook page or follow the streaming tweets! Get involved and learn more: http://www.worldaidscampaign.org/. For more information contact Kierra Irvin at ws-kirvin@gonzaga.edu or 509-303-6446.