The Rocket

Issue date: 3/30/07 Section: Focus

Media Credit: Submitted Photo Julie McNeil, a graduate student at SRU, tutors a student at the I-Care House in New Castle. The I-Care House works in conjunction with the university's Institute for Community, Service-Learning and Nonprofit Leadership.

Community service means something different to everyone.

To some, it can mean hours of backbreaking labor with no rewards.

But to others, especially for some on the SRU campus, community service is a chance to give the surrounding community what it needs, regardless of what rewards are reaped.

The Institute for Community, Service-Learning, and Nonprofit Leadership at SRU has been serving the community for more than 10 years.

Replacing the old Office of Volunteer Programs, the Institute was put into place in the spring of 1994, with Alice Kaiser-Drobney as the director.

Kaiser-Drobney was influential in getting the program started and has headed it since its conception.

"When I came to SRU, the only people doing community service were the Greeks," Kaiser-Drobney said. "I feel that community service is something that should be going on all the time."

One of Kaiser-Drobney's main ideas of community service is that the community should come first.

"It isn't so much about what we do, its how we do what we do," Kaiser-Drobney said. "We ask questions and find out what the community needs. We then mobilize the people on campus to do the work."

Community service should not be about fixing personal guilt, Kaiser-Drobney said, but instead should fulfill the needs of the community.

The Institute has had a positive effect not only on the community, but also on the campus itself.

Since the Institute has been in place, more majors are requiring community service work hours for their students.

"In the past three years, service-learning has become a requirement for students with a major in sports management, elementary education, special education, physical therapy and environmental studies," Kaiser-Drobney said.

Along with the annual Empty Bowls food drive and the highly successful CareBreak trips, the Institute also offers tutoring programs for people of all ages.

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