The Prairie Landscape

The Meaning of Service (MoS)

REFLECTING ON…
MEANING OF SERVICE AND OTHER CIVIC REFLECTION PROGRAMS AT THE ILLINOIS HUMANITIES COUNCIL

In 2001, IHC launched The Meaning of Service (MoS), a reading and discussion program for Americorps volunteers featuring discussions that use short philosophical and literary texts on the nature of justice, service, and related themes. Meaning of Service presents participants with the opportunity to examine, refine, and regenerate the beliefs underlying their work. It assists participants in developing confidence in thinking and speaking about complex and pertinent matters (such as service and justice, to name two). The discussions also provide opportunities for colleagues to come to understand each other more deeply, to build solidarity and support in new environments, and to add to the communicative capacity of the group. The hope is that these discussions assist participants in enhancing their understanding of why they do what they do – and thereby improving what they do.

The discussions aren't trainings meant to impart specific knowledge but conversations meant to establish or re-establish connections—connections to motives for coming to this work, connections between those who are sharing in the discussions, and connections between underlying commitments and daily choices. Selected readings may include poems by Pablo Neruda and Langston Hughes, essays by Jane Addams or Martin Luther King, Jr., or short stories by Tony Cade Bambara and Dave Eggers.

MoS currently engages close to 200 young volunteers at nine sites in Illinois: City Year, Public Allies, Project YES, Neighborhood Relations VISTA, Asian Human Services, PCC Westside AmeriCorps, Notre Dame Mercy AmeriCorps, East St. Louis AmeriCorps, and Southwestern IL College AmeriCorps.

In 2005, IHC received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to expand The Meaning of Service nationwide. Through this grant, thirteen other states have joined Illinois in offering The Meaning of Service to young people engaged in community service. Each state presents MoS in at least two sites. Rhode Island has expanded the program to reach all 200 Americorps volunteers in the state, and Ohio hopes to expand the program to reach all of the Americorps volunteers across the state. States involved in MoS are working with service organizations such as the Vermont Center for Independent Living, Rochester Americorps, the Montana Conservation Corps, Leadership Anchorage, and the Mississippi Commission for Volunteer Service.

Participants engaged in MoS report that the experience creates an environment in which they can reflect openly and comfortably on their service, while building cooperative skills which support their work in helping communities. Based on the success of Meaning of Service , the IHC is considering other civically-engaged communities that might find reading and reflection programs similarly fruitful. IHC has piloted a program with the Logan Square Neighborhood Association, a community organization that builds relationships, trains leaders, and works to create better schools, affordable housing, sustainable land use, immigrants’ rights, neighborhood safety, and youth and senior citizen activities in the Logan Square Neighborhood. IHC will also be exploring opportunities to pilot reading and reflection programs for teachers and law enforcement and community groups. In all of its reading and reflection programs, the IHC works closely with its partner, The Project on Civic Reflection.