Local to Global Service-Learning: A Two-Hour Volunteer Experience in Global Citizenship
Author: Sanmiguel, Elizabeth R.
Date: 2019-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Citizenship Education,Service Learning,Volunteers,Learner Engagement,Citizen Participation,College Students,College Faculty,Community Services,Teacher Student Relationship,Hunger,Children,Nutrition,School Community Programs,School Community Relationship,Food,Global Approach

Driven by the motto of civic engagement and local to global citizenship,Texas A&amp;M International University (TAMIU) is a campus that emphasizes building a friendly community in which students and faculty engage in building strong personal and professional relationships that will lead them toward a more globally aware, socially just, and democratic society. According to Loeb (cited in Barnhardt, Sheets, &amp; Pasquesi, 2015), &quot;college is a formative time where students develop the habits of mind and assumptions necessary for community life and democratic participation; as such, college has far-reaching consequences for civic engagement&quot; (p. 623). Hence the climate that the campus creates is a crucial factor during each student's personal and professional development because it will heavily influence the student's disposition as a citizen of his or her local, national, and global community. So how then does a university with more than 7,000 students engage each student globally when it is not financially possible to fund international service-learning for all students? This article describes how faculty and students at this university are joining those who have found ways to serve locally with an international lens to impact globally. On February 24-25, 2017, TAMIU hosted a MobilePack event at the Student Center Rotunda. Approximately 600 TAMIU students and community members, aged 5-75 years, eagerly volunteered to staff two-hour shifts to pack medically fortified, nutritious meals for children who suffer from malnourishment. The focus of this study was on determining how successful a MobilePack event was by surveying volunteers after they had engaged in training and packing meals. Following the TAMIU hosted MobilePack event at the Student Center Rotunda, the lead author created a survey composed of 10 items. The survey contained seven forced-choice questions, and three open-ended questions in order to gather participants' responses about their MobilePack experience after volunteering in one or more two-hour shifts hand-packing meals. Approximately 600 TAMIU students and community members, aged 5-75 years, eagerly volunteered to staff two-hour shifts to pack medically fortified, nutritious meals for children who suffer from malnourishment. The findings of this study highlight the need for educators to make the components of service-learning transparent to participants whom they engage in service-learning experiences. Core content needs to be defined, in this case, the reasons for child hunger, and the historical, geographical, natural, and man-made factors need to be appropriately explored with students. Pre- and post-reflective sessions should be honored by registrants and those who recruit them to participate. A major finding is that students may believe the service makes an event service-learning, but this research supports the notion that it is the learning in service-learning that is requisite. A demographic that bears reporting is that four of the original six-member team continued in leadership by developing the next event. New members are shaping an expanded team who began hosting service-learning projects a full year ahead of the second scheduled packing event. As this manuscript was being written, the TAMIU community has set another MobilePack event for the upcoming academic year, with the results from this study and reflective discussions to guide the planning for the university and the community in which it is invested.