Depending upon the availability of funds each year, the Corporation may offer competitive grants for innovative and community-based service-learning programs.

Specific requirements will be defined for each grant competition, but in general eligible entities include State Educational Agencies, State Commissions, US Territories, Indian tribes, institutions of higher education, or a public or private non-profit organization (including community-based entities), public or private elementary or secondary schools, local educational agencies, a consortium of such entities, or a consortium of two or more such entities and a for-profit organization. Funding for the following programs, however, is contingent upon congressional approval of the FY 2010 budget.

• Learn about Learn and Serve America grant opportunities

Summer of Service

The Corporation is authorized to establish or implement Summer of Service programs (giving priority to programs that enroll youth who will be entering any of grades 6 through 9 at the end of the summer concerned) during the summer months (including recruiting, training, and placing service-learning coordinators). Programs will engage youth in community-based service-learning projects that shall:

• meet unmet human, educational, environmental (including energy conservation and stewardship), and emergency and disaster preparedness and other public safety needs;
       
• be intensive, structured, supervised, and designed to produce identifiable improvements to the community;
       
• that may include the extension of academic year service-learning programs into the summer months; and
       
• under which a student who completes 100 hours of service shall be eligible for a summer of service educational award of $500 or $750.

Youth Engagement Zones

The term ‘youth engagement zone program’ refers to a service-learning program in which members of an eligible partnership collaborate to provide coordinated school-based or community-based service-learning opportunities. Youth Engagement Zone programs happen in local educational agencies where all of the secondary schools implement service-learning as part of the curriculum and where at least 90 percent of students are involved in service-learning activities.

Semester of Service

The Kennedy Serve America Act includes a Semester of Service initiative as one of its approaches to promoting service-learning innovation. It would engage high school students, a large percentage of whom must be economically disadvantaged, in semester-long service-learning projects lasting at least 70 hours. Projects could be either school- or community-based, but there must be a classroom-based component that is integrated into the academic program of the local education agency.

Students must receive academic credit for the classroom and field components of their projects and the credit must be equivalent to what they would receive if they put forth similar effort in a non-service-learning course. Further, at least one-third of the hours dedicated to a project must be “spent participating in field-based activities.” Semester of Service programs could be funded for up to three years, and the first year could be exclusively for planning.

Issue Areas

• integrating service-learning programs into the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (referred to in this part as ‘STEM’) curricula at the elementary, secondary, postsecondary, or post baccalaureate levels in coordination with practicing or retired STEM professionals;
       
• involving students in service-learning programs focusing on energy conservation in their community, including conducting educational outreach on energy conservation and working to improve energy efficiency in low-income housing and in public spaces;
       
• involving students in service-learning programs in emergency and disaster preparedness;
       
• involving students in service-learning programs aimed at improving access to and obtaining the benefits from computers and other emerging technologies, including improving such access for individuals with disabilities, in low-income or rural communities, in senior centers and communities, in schools, in libraries, and in other public spaces;
       
• involving high school age youth in the mentoring of middle school youth while involving all participants in service-learning to seek to meet unmet human, educational, environmental, public safety, or emergency and disaster preparedness needs in their community; and
      
• conducting innovative and creative activities related to the principles of the Constitution, the heroes of United States history (including military heroes), and the meaning of the Pledge of Allegiance; how the Nation’s government functions; and the importance of service in the Nation’s character.

Research

The Corporation may award grants to conduct research and evaluations on service-learning, including service-learning in middle schools, and disseminate such research and evaluations widely.