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The Agapé Center for Service and Learning

Into the Streets


Into the Streets (ITS) is part of first-year orientation where students spend a half day serving with community partners. Through this experience, students are encouraged to reflect on their experiences to prepare for their journey of service, leadership, and reconciliation in Church and society.

 


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Mission of Into the Streets

The mission of Into the Streets is to introduce students to community service at Messiah College and challenge them to volunteer on a regular basis by holding a one-day service program for all incoming students during their first few days at school. Into the Streets is designed to help fulfill Messiah College's mission to prepare students for lives of service, leadership, and reconciliation in church and society.

Who takes part in Into the Streets?

  • Community Partners in the Harrisburg Area host teams of First Year Students and Transfer Students
  • First Year Students serve with their First Year Seminar classes
  • Transfer Students serve with other transfer students who volunteer to participate in the day
  • FYS Professors are welcome and highly encouraged to serve along side their students
  • The Agape Center manages team placement, transportation, and lunch distribution

 

History of Into the Streets
ITS was founded in 1991 with support from the Kellogg Foundation. It was originally a project of The Campus Outreach Opportunity League (COOL), a national non-profit organization that works with college students to develop community service programs. Currently, ITS occurs on hundreds of undergraduate campuses annually throughout the United States. Operating under the motto, "Try it for a day, you may love it for a lifetime," ITS provides a model for a one-day community service program aimed at encouraging people to volunteer within their communities. *

Into the Streets at Messiah
Messiah College has held an annual one-day service event based on the ITS model every year since 1999. Since then, the program has become a wonderful introduction to Messiah's unique emphasis on service. Every year, around 800 first-year students wake up on only the second day of their college careers to serve with 50-60 transfer students and a handful of professors in the greater Harrisburg area. In the past, ITS has sent students to as many as 50 local agencies to serve by building, cleaning, weeding, listening, learning, painting, and even picking apples! Students, Community Partners, Peer Group Leaders, and Professors all report that Into the Streets is a great day for accomplishing goals and building relationships.


More than Just a One-Time Project
Although ITS serves the community by getting a whole lot done in one day, the real benefits of the program extend throughout the school year. By sending students out into the community before they have a chance to settle into a routine that doesn't seem to leave time for service, the program hopes to establish community involvement as a priority right from the start. Students challenged to serve as a result of ITS can plug into any of the existing programs run by the Agape Center, or can even start new ones! In addition, by involving professors teaching First Year Seminars, ITS can serve as a launch pad for service learning in the classroom.


* Courtesy of AMSA Standing Committee on Community and Public Health, "Into the Streets: How to Plan a Community Service Day Project at Your School.


 

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