They also clean up the bleacher area after home football games. Each fall, YHY students hold a teacher open house to explain how they can be of help to the school. The Youth Health Day Conference is attended by seventh grade YHY participants, who share what they learn with other students. Partnerships between schools and communities, which result in citizen and community development, enhance public relations. The partnerships established by service-learning programs between schools and their communities provide dividends not otherwise available.
Every human community has human needs that can be enhanced through service.
In helping to address those needs, the school and district profit from enhanced public relations with their host community. One of the chief positive results of the youth service effort in Minnesota has been the engagement of schools with their communities around the issues of what those communities should be like for youth-and of course, for adults as well. When communities discuss what they want young people's lives to be, they are really discussing what they want their own lives to be, as well. As schools and students reach out into the community they become much more invested in what that community is about. With only one fourth of American households currently having school-aged children, it is especially critical that schools find additional means to establish close ties to the Community.