The Campus Chronicle

Volume 3, No. 31
August 1, 2003

Rising Star student Erin Halpin plays with cats awaiting adoption at the Humane Society of Chatham-Savannah July 19 during the Rising Star Day of Service.
Photo by Elizabeth H. Raley

Students gain experience through community service

By Beth Concepción

For many Savannah College of Art and Design students, an education isn’t just about classrooms and studio time, it’s also about finding a way to help others on their way to an art education.

Service Opportunities for Students was created about six years ago as a way to offer students an opportunity to get involved in the community, and SCAD students responded. Over the years, students have built houses with Habitat for Humanity, planted trees with Savannah Tree Foundation, established a recycling program on the SCAD campus, organized beach clean-ups and spent their spring break completing projects in other cities, such as restoring a historic gazebo in a public square in Ocean Springs, Miss.

Rising Star students got in on the action July 19 when they participated in a Day of Service. More than 150 students and 20 staff members volunteered to exercise animals at the Humane Society of Chatham-Savannah, weed the Candler oak tree, paint a mural at Johnson High School, and repaint a concrete play area at Richmond Hill Montessori Preschool, among others.

Jeff Feld-Gore, assistant director of student involvement, said, “We wanted to do the same thing for the Rising Star students that we do for the SCAD students. We want them to interact and learn about the surrounding community. Community service means more than picking up trash. You can take what you learn in the classroom and help other people with it.”

Recently, SOS expanded to include art education for local elementary and high school students. Cynthia White, a painting graduate student, and Jonathan Hill, the 2003 valedictorian, coordinated the program through SOS last year. “Jonathan was with the illustration society and they developed an after-school program on Fridays where they would do cartooning and drawing with local students,” she said. “Apparently teachers were calling and calling and requesting this type of program.”

Hence the art education program was born. Participating schools include Jenkins High School, Pooler Elementary, Hodge Elementary and Bartow Elementary.

“We have some amazing projects that are continuing projects,” she said. “At Pooler Elementary, they have a learning garden in the center courtyard. They were looking for a group of students who could teach their fifth graders painting and drawing skills to create a garden mural. Our job was not to paint it for them, but rather to teach the children basic skills such as perspective and color. About seven students volunteered six times over 10 weeks and helped about 100 fifth graders.”

The overall goal of the program is comprehensive.

“The mission is to raise art awareness in the existing curriculum in schools by allowing SCAD students to teach in a positive learning environment,” White said. “It helps the SCAD students to learn teaching skills, develop their own talent and share their skills.”

The participants also reap the benefits professionally.

“Students need to realize that they will be chosen for their first job based not only on their portfolio, but by demonstrated experiences in and out of the work place,” said Damon Walcott, former assistant director of student involvement who helped set up the program. “Direct and indirect experience, from internships to community service involvement, produces valuable time spent that places [students] on a higher step of the job ladder.”

White, who stepped down as coordinator to work on her thesis, said that is one of the reasons she got involved with the program.

“What it has given me mostly is communication skills,” said White, who plans to be an art therapist and is the one who presented the idea to the Savannah-Chatham County Board of Education. “I learned how to converse with administration officials and how to present information. It showed me the importance of being committed and professional, well-dressed and well-versed.”

White said she also enjoyed meeting students in different majors through the program, and gained other personal benefits from volunteering.

“As with any community service project, you get an immense amount of reward that you don’t even expect,” she said. “I got immense satisfaction of seeing something coming to fruition through perseverance.”

That sentiment was echoed by Anne-Marie Creech, an architecture senior also involved with SOS. “I do it because I know that I’m making a difference, and how many people can come home at the end of their day and honestly say, ‘Today, I made a difference’?,” she said.

Feld-Gore said new art education coordinators Natalie Garber and Paige Hancock, both senior illustration majors, will determine specific goals when fall quarter begins, but the primary goal overall is “to develop a richer context for student learning.”