Service Learning Opportunities

Below, you can read about an array of local community organizations with which you can work this semester, perhaps for a 4th-credit service learning option. This could offer you the chance to engage in some really authentic writing this semester; I strongly encourage you to consider one of these options!


Compeer Chautauqua

Compeer Chautauqua pairs trained local volunteers in one-on-one relationships with people with mental illness.

Help they are interested in:

•  Raising the organization’s visibility through a blog or help with their website

•  A digital video—perhaps about the organization, or perhaps working toward stigma reduction regarding mental illness.

Village of Fredonia

The Village of Fredonia’s webpage was hacked recently, and they could use help updating their online presence.

Help they would be interested in:

• Re-designing their website

•  Re-conceiving of an image for the village

• Possibly writing or research that would be based in the village’s records, going back to the 1800’s: writing about how the village had the first Grange Hall, for example, or was the site of Women’s Christian Temperance Movement’s founding, or was once in Ripley’s Believe It or Not for having the most bars per square mile! You might have the chance to bring the village’s history to life on its new website and draw from your research to help the village imagine the image it will use in promotional work going forward.

Chautauqua County Gleaning Project

The Chautauqua County Gleaning Project is a local organization run by SUNY Fredonia graduates in which volunteers conduct a “second harvest” of local farm, collecting produce for local food pantries. According to the organization’s blog, “Over the past 14 years, the Chautauqua County Gleaning project has recovered and distributed over 650,000 pounds of fruits and vegetables through over 60 food pantries and agencies county wide.”

Help they are interested in:

• Contributions to their blog

• A video about their work

• Help with gleaning and/or educational projects—perhaps writing about their educational projects

Greystone Nature Preserve

Greystone Nature Preserve “offers programs in environmental education for groups of all ages and abilities.  Programs center around active educational and contemplative opportunities.” 

Help they would be interested in:

• A video for their Facebook page and website

• The leaders of Greystone are committed not only to benefitting from the expertise of the students who help them, but also to helping students develop as people through interaction with nature. They would ask (and allow) students working with them to spend time at the preserve: sometimes helping with programs or maintenance, sometimes simply hiking or sitting quietly. They would like a student to gain a deep understanding of the preserve before they began writing about it.

Literacy Volunteers of Chautauqua County

The Literacy Volunteers of Chautauqua County train and pair tutors to work one-on-one with adults who are learning to read and write. Many of these adults are English language learners.

Help they would be interested in:

• The organization wants to better understand how to reach and serve portions of Dunkirk’s Spanish-speaking population. They would like a student to conduct research—much of it with the actual residents they are trying to reach—to learn how they could better reach this population.

• They might be interested in a digital video—perhaps describing the work that they do, perhaps presenting the findings of the research above, or perhaps designed to reach the Spanish-speaking population.  This work likely requires some proficiency in Spanish, but would be a fantastic project for an English education major!

SUNY Fredonia Big Read

SUNY Fredonia’s Big Read program “is an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts, designed to restore reading to the center of American culture.” The program works to inspire the whole community to read and talk about the same book. This year, the program will be sponsoring reading of Emily Dickinson’s poetry.

Help they would be interested in:

•  A stronger digital presence: perhaps helping them get information from paper booklets online.

• Perhaps designing and collecting lesson plans on Dickenson, which the library could post as a resource for teachers. (We would need to make sure the writing you’re doing fits our course goals as well, but again, this would be a great project for an English education student!)

The Chautauqua Region Community Foundation

The Chautauqua Region Community Foundation funds local nonprofit organizations such as the Boys and Girls Club, the Literacy Volunteers, Rural Ministries, and the Audubon Society.

Help they would be interested in:

• The organization relies on fundraising, and to help in that effort, they would like a student to engage in storytelling for them. They would like someone to gather the stories of donors: why did they donate? Why did they donate to a particular cause? Where did their money go—what organization did it help, and how?  These stories could take the form of blog entries, entries on a website, and/or a digital video. This could be a really fun way to extend the meaning of “research”— you would primarily be interviewing people and figuring out how to tell their stories in a way that would inspire others to give.

The North Shore Arts Alliance

The North Short Arts Alliance is a non-profit organization that works to support local artists, in part through marketing and promotion, and that works to “promote and integrate the arts into everyday life in the community.”

Help they would be interested in:

• Someone to gather and share blurbs about their artists. (This would also require some interviewing, and could be another really fun way to think about the research required for this course!)