FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE -- 3/17/99 | Contact: Diana Smith, 719-389-6138  

COLORADO SPRINGS -- The 10th anniversary celebration of the Colorado College center for community service will take place in April as a part of the annual service awards recognition dinner.

Benjamin Barber will give the keynote address, "Service Learning and Civic Education: Indispensable Foundations for Democracy." Barber is the director of the Walt Whitman Center for the Culture and Politics of Democracy and the Whitman professor of political science at Rutgers University.

A mayor's proclamation commemorating the 10th anniversary will be read at the dinner. Also, approximately 26 service awards will be given to students, staff, and members of the Colorado Springs community.

The center was formed when groups of students who wanted to work together created their own service programs. In 10 years, the center has gone from three student groups to more than 25. Last year, approximately 72 percent of Colorado College students contributed 28,466 hours of volunteer work for 132 organizations nationwide.

El Pomar Foundation gave the center a $45,000 grant in the fall of 1989. Today, special projects money is available for new student initiatives, and leadership development funds are available through the McHugh Chair, held by professor of political science Lief Carter.

One of the most well-known programs is the six-year-old soup kitchen, set up every Sunday at Shove Chapel, where more than 200 people are fed each week. The kitchen is completely student-run.

The annual Streetwise program began in 1995 as part of new student orientation to demonstrate the important role of community service at CC. Four years ago, there were 18 agencies involved with Streetwise; now there are 24. Some of the agencies engaged this year are BethHaven group home, the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, Keep Colorado Springs Beautiful, Namaste Alzheimer's Center, Southern Colorado AIDS Project, Colorado Springs Day Nursery, and the Bear Creek Nature Center.

Last fall, the block break program BreakOut sent students to Wyoming to work on a Shoshone reservation; to Moab, Utah, and the San Juan Mountains to do trail building and maintenance; to Santa Fe, N.M., to work on an organic farm; to Boulder, Colo., to work at Anam Cara, a holistic healing center; and to La Puente shelter in Alamosa, Colo., to participate in a "Hope Week" celebration.

Three years ago, the women's soccer team formed a partnership with the Police Athletic League, which sponsors athletics teams for at-risk youth. The alliance, called "Vision Quest," is a tutoring program. In addition, for three years, three fraternity members have taken turns helping a quadraplegic man swim.

Colorado College is also a co-founder of the Colorado Campus Compact, an association of all the schools in state that have community service programs.

For more on the CC center for community service

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