Spanish Community Service Learning Anecdote 11

This student does a wonderful job of asking the potential donor to connect his/her own experiences to the cause she is promoting. She taps into their feelings of frustration at the challenge of learning a foreign language, and then asks them to multiply that by the hours of a whole school day. She really has them from the very beginning and then carries the readers through to the moment of exactly how they can help.

I am a volunteer at ECIRMAC (the Refugee Center) here in Urbana. We need your help! Do you remember how hard it was to remember every vocabulary word when you were taking foreign language classes in high school? Now imagine that you had to be in that situation all day instead of just during your one hour foreign language class. You would be very frustrated! That is what it would be like if you were an immigrant here in the United States learning English for the first time. Most students do not realize that we have a large immigrant population right here in Champaign Urbana. I know that there are many Greek houses on this campus and all of you do an amazing job fundraising for all sorts of different causes. At this time I would like to challenge you to extend your service beyond monetary donations and have you consider becoming more active in your community involvement. The Refugee Center is looking for bright young college students like you to volunteer for the Saturday Morning Tutorial Program to help teach English to immigrant families in our community. The lessons can be informal; you do not need to have a strict background in education. Simply come in to help them with normal conversation to improve their vocabulary and accent. Because it is more of a relaxed setting you could think of your own activities to engage with the families! It can be fun because you can make up word games and stories with them! This will show the families your interest and dedication to the program, and it will be easy to make connections with community members. Please contact me by March 13th to sign up as a volunteer for the Refugee Center Saturday Morning Tutorial Program.

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