Community Service at AIM~Academy in Manayunk:
From the opening of our doors, we have expected students to participate in their community by acting as advocates for themselves, their peers and their learning. Through community service, we take this a step further and ask students to consistently reflect on their connections to learning as they exist outside of the classroom.

The Community Service program at AIM has three main goals:

• Live It To Learn It:  To provide students with relevant hands-on learning experiences both locally and globally
• Local and Global Citizenship: To instill students with a sense of social responsibility thereby fostering an understanding of themselves as local and global citizens.
• Multicultural Pride and Understanding: To empower students to take purposeful action in their learning as they broaden their understanding of cultures, realities and lifestyles.

The advocacy of reflective, meaningful connections to learning begins early in the AIM Upper School.  Students in the Middle School participate in community service throughout their 6th, 7th and 8th grade years, with each grade participating in a sustained service project with a select local organization providing service for that organization throughout each of their Middle School years.  These partnerships continue into the High School, where students participate in sustained projects consisting of both on-campus and off-campus work.

Upper School students join with the Pennsylvania Horticulture Society and the Friends of Gorgas Park to kick off their back-to-school community service project.

Why Service Learning:
The AIM curriculum is built around the idea of students having a deep connection to what the concepts they are being asked to master.  As a means to bolster its curriculum for its students to take the most away from their experience, Service-Learning is more than just a means to capture the phrase “hands-on learning”.  It provides relevancy, builds empathy, generates community and gives students a voice.

A Program of Partnerships:
To create meaningful and reciprocal experiences for its students, AIM has worked to develop a portfolio of community partners from the Philadelphia area and beyond.  These partners allow the students of AIM to immerse themselves in a meaningful, familiar place where they can use their skills to build help in building the community around them.  A sample of AIM community partners includes:

AIM High School and rising 8th grade students participated in an urban expedition with Baltimore Outward Bound.  Students were given opportunities to hone their leadership skills while providing high quality community service to a handful of Baltimore partners.

Working with the Friends of the Cynwyd Heritage Trail and the Friends of the Manayunk Canal AIM students have provided hours of maintenance to these local green spaces while learning about the beauty and advantages these spaces provide to the residents of the local community.

Through its partnership with Project HOME AIM students have gained tremendous insight into the challenges that face residents of Philadelphia.  Students have worked to provide food, clothing and volunteer hours for Project HOME that have led to fruitful learnings for both the non-profit and students.

One of the oldest and most sustained partnerships for AIM students is with SHARE Food Program.  This partnership has provided students with countless hours of high quality learning surrounding the advantages of local food supplies and the necessity of infrastructure for providing residents with food options.

And AIM students are active participants in local government providing quality volunteer hours for State House Rep. Dennis O’Brien and State House Rep. Jim Gerber, among others.  Exploring the Constitution and its precepts in action, students have gained a deep understanding of the value of local government in their life.

Service Learning Resources:
For additional information about Service-Learning visit the following organizations’ websites:

National Service Learning Clearinghouse:  www.servicelearning.org
National Youth Leadership Council:  www.nylc.org