NYLC and State Farm Companies Foundation to Honor Mary Rogers

The National Youth Leadership Council and State Farm Companies Foundation have announced the winner of the 2008 State Farm Youth Leadership for Service-Learning Award.

Mary Rogers has been a devoted champion of service-learning at Abington Senior High School for at least the past 10 years. The author of The Service-Learning Handbook, and 40 Ways to Spark Your Program, she is a service-learning coordinator at the school and also a peer mentor through the Philadelphia-based Institute for Global Education and Service-Learning. In her K-12 teaching and adult trainings she helps create “a culture of service” locally, regionally, and nationally. She helps move entire systems from community service, to project-based service-learning, to classroom-based learning and service through trainings in institutionalization. Among the results of her support for service-learning is the renovation of an historic property; the development of a math-based homework helpline; “fantasy fences” designed to protect riparian buffers; an eyeglasses project which refurbishes eyeglasses for distribution to developing countries; a quilt-making project for hospitalized children; and a district-wide project addressing the global water crisis. With the inception of a mandatory service-learning program at Abington, juvenile crime has dropped 26%. As her Principal Robert Burt writes, “While once our school was seen as a separate and obscure entity, Abington High School is now viewed as responsible and sensitive to the needs of our diverse community.” The school has been recognized by the Corporation for National and Community Service as a National Leader School for Service-Learning.

The State Farm Service-Learning Practitioner Leadership Award
recognizes those practitioners who have equipped young people to lead
and serve, both through their direct work with youths and by nurturing
other practitioners. This year's awards will be presented on Thursday, April 10th at The 19th Annual National Service-Learning Conference in Minneapolis.

Past Recipients:

• Deborah Wagner, 2007
  Director of Grants and Special Projects, Ionia County (Mich.) Intermediate School District
• Barbara G. Shaiman, 2006
  Founder,Champions of Caring, Villanova, Pa.
• Jan Schuster, 2005
  Former Service-Learning Coordinator, Kirkwood (Mo.) School District
• Jane Hammat-Kavaloski, 2004
  Teacher, Malcolm-Shabazz High School, Madison, Wis.
• Marcia Applen, 2003
  Teacher, St. Peter High School, St. Peter, Minn.
• Kate McPherson, 2002
  Service-learning leader, Vancouver, Wash.
• Dr. Sallye McKee, 2001
  Professor, Bowling Green, Ohio
• Evelyn Robinson, 2000
  Teacher and service-learning coordinator, Groveland, Fla.
• Joey Hoffman, 1999
  Teacher, Middletown, Md.