Q: How does service learning empower students?
A: “The information you’re learning is important, but more important is the formation of the person that you’re becoming,” says Whitney Daly, director of pastoral life and the religion department chair at Gilmour Academy. “Service work helps students learn that their presence makes a difference in the lives of others and, more importantly, that the lives of others make a difference in their life. That can be as simple as going to tutor at an inner-city school. They see that they have made a difference in the lives of these young people, but they also have been transformed by the experience. It doesn’t matter if they’re working with the homeless, children or prisoners, they learn to see the human dignity in others.”