CSL with the Campus Food Bank

Campus Food Bank Logo (2008).
Retrieved from: campusfoodbank.com

Community-Service Learning (CSL) completely exceeded my expectations - it was so much more than just 20 hours of volunteer work.  Over the past three months, Nian and I worked on some exciting projects for the  Campus Food Bank (CFB), with guidance from our wonderful supervisors, Ashley Seibert and Jennifer Nguyen.  Our first project was to update the Campus Food Bank's Twitter account about upcoming events, interesting links, needed donations, or volunteer opportunities. When tweeting about events, I learned to link the Facebook event page in the tweet to exclude fine details and make room for creativity and relevant hashtags.  Tweeting for the CFB gave us a chance to practice constructing concise, critically literate tweets.  Here's one of my tweets:

Le, B. (2012). CFB Tweet [Screenshot]. Retrieved from: https://twitter.com/#!/campusfoodbank

Our second project was to make classroom presentations about the Campus Food Bank's service and events.  Initially, we found it quite daunting to have hundreds of students stare at us, but with enough practice, we became comfortable with public speaking.  We had the chance to apply ALES 204 knowledge in our presentations, such as the incorporation of hand gestures to make us appear more relaxed.  I also tried lowering the pitch of my voice because we learned that it makes the speaker sound confident.  I think it worked, but at the expense of my enthusiasm, so I am working on finding a balance between the two.  Classroom presentations were a great opportunity for us to explore our strengths and weaknesses with public speaking.

Le, B. (2012). CFB's Glamorous New Office [Photograph].
Retrieved from personal files.

Our third project was to establish the CFB's first external newsletter.  The CFB has an internal newsletter for staff and volunteers, but we decided to try starting a newsletter for the greater campus community.  Our newsletter's main focus was the CFB's recent office move to a spacious, new area in SUB.  It also included information about the organization, events, donations, volunteer opportunities and contact information.  Although we didn't learn about newsletters in ALES 204, we learned about poster-making, which offered some valuable advice we applied to making newsletters.  We used bullet points and sans sherif fonts for easier reading, and put the office move in the center of the page to draw attention to it.  When we completed the newsletter, it was distributed via email to over 15 faculty offices across the U of A campus.

In conclusion, my CSL experience was remarkable.  I had the opportunity to offer service to a local non-profit, and learned about social issues such as food security and student poverty.  I also had the chance to complete projects I never thought I was qualified to do.  These projects strengthened my interpersonal skills and enhanced my understanding of ALES 204 material.  In addition, the Campus Food Bank's exceptionally dedicated staff and volunteers truly inspired me - they have an admirable passion for ending hunger on campus.  Community Service-Learning is an amazing program and I feel extremely grateful that I chose to take part in it.  My fellow CSL classmates have fantastic stories to share!  Read about Mark's experience with Sustain SU, or Lina's experience with the Students' Union.