GET INVOLVED!

"It is one of the most beautiful compensations of life, that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself." -Ralph Waldo Emerson

MLK Challenge New Student Orientation Spring 2005

Orientation Projects

When new students join the Warren Wilson community, not only do they receive an orientation to their work and academics, but we at the Service-Learning Office make sure they also become oriented with serving the larger community. So, at the end of orientation week, each new student (along with many returning students, staff, and faculty) participates in a full day of service to the Asheville-Buncombe area. In the past, students have done a tremendous amount of work for these local agencies and earned a great reputation in the community. Use the navigation bar at the right to check out pictures from past Service Days.

Weekly Projects

Feeding fish at The Health Adventure

Often, the best way to volunteer with a non-profit is to make a long-term commitment to it. Some students at Warren Wilson have dedicated over 100 hours of service to a single agency by serving on a regular basis. In order to help more students achieve this kind of successful service, the Service-Learning Office offers about 20 weekly service trips to local agencies, focusing on a variety of issues. These trips go out at least once a week for 1-4 hours at a time to organizations like MANNA Food Bank, ESL tutoring, Big Brothers/Big Sisters, Black Mountain Community Garden, the Welcome Table Veggie Soup Kitchen, The Black Mountain Center, and Presbyterian Homes for Children.

Special Projects

The Montford Peace Wall Project

Nearly every weekend, Service-Learning offers a Saturday or Sunday trip for 5-15 students to work for a full day on a specific project for a local organization. Past Saturday projects include helping to build a Peace Wall in Asheville for fallen soldiers in Iraq, constructing a roof for a Habitat for Humanity house, mulching trails at the NC Arboretum, participating in Quality Forward's Swannanoa River Clean-up, and running the children's booth at Organicfest in downtown Asheville.

William Lyons on the Spring Break trip to John C. Campbell Folk School

Break Trips: Week-long Service Projects

When it's time to break from academics, we encourage students to use their spare time to get involved in service. During the fall, winter, and spring breaks, Service-Learning offers several different week-long trips that go out all over the Southeast (and sometimes even further!). These trips are not only a great way for students to do a bulk of their 100 required service hours, but they also provide students with a strong connection to a single agency. Often, students come back from service break trips with a strong knowledge of both the organization and the social issue that it serves.

Please see the break trips page for more information about these projects.

What Else Do We Do?

In addition to providing the means for students to do direct service, the Service-Learning Office strives to promote awareness throughout the college campus of locally and globally focused social issues. It is our hope that students will use their knowledge to make their actions more meaningful and purposeful when they serve these issues.
Service-Learning offers issue-awareness opportunities throughout the year in the forms of panel discussions, guest speakers, fundraisers, and service fairs. In November, we celebrate National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness week with events like Empty Bowls (an educational dinner/fundraiser), the Hunger Banquet, Miss-a-Meal (in which students agree to donate the money for their meal to MANNA Food Bank), and a very powerful panel discussion. Similar events are held for Black History Month, Women's History Month, and Earth Day.

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