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Youth programs occur through school, religious organizations, scout troops and other activities.  Often, service is a requirement to advance – to graduate from high school, to be confirmed, to make a Bar/Bat Mitzvah, or to achieve a higher rank in Boy Scouts , Girl Scouts and other organizations.

Youth Service Day occurs in more than 100 countries every year and is the largest service event in the world!  Children and youth address the world's most critical issues by lending a hand to help families, schools, community and faith-based organizations, businesses, and governments. 

How the Volunteer Center can help:

• Find a volunteer opportunity! Visit the Volunteer Center Database for over 300 volunteer opportunities. 



• Find tips on how to organize a collection



• Find Student Project Ideas

Youth Leadership Training
Want to learn how to combine youth service with community leadership?
The Volunteer Center offers the Points of Light Youth Leadership Institute, or PYLI  (pie-lie), which is a unique training program designed to help prepare the next generation for leadership roles in their communities.  Through a state-of-the-art curriculum that includes both classroom instruction and experiential training, PYLI teaches middle- and high-school-age youth a broad array of leadership skills applicable to community service.  The ultimate purpose is to help create stronger communities - and a stronger nation - by igniting in young people the ability and the desire to make meaningful, lifelong contributions to their communities.

Take find out more about this exciting program
http://www.pyli.org/institute.html

If  your school or organization might be interested in sponsoring a PYLI, contact Debbie Emery at the Volunteer Center, 201-489-9454 or mailto:demery@bergenvolunteers.org

Service-Learning
Service-Learning is a teaching and learning strategy that integrates meaningful community service with instruction and reflection to enrich the learning experience, teach civic responsibility, and strengthen communities.

Service Learning isn’t just about volunteering, and it’s not just about putting in time doing some volunteer work.

Service-learning is about helping students put academic skills that they learn in school – math, science, literature, composition, history – to work in understanding our community and making our world a better place in which to live, work and go to school.  It’s about schools investing in this concept to broaden education and its relevancy to students and to the community.

Service-learning projects work best when they fit the ages and developmental abilities of the students, include interesting and engaging service activities, explore the context of the underlying societal issues the service addresses, and address needs that are important to the community being served.

How to get more youth to volunteer:

• Ask them to volunteer.
• Encourage them to get involved at an early age.
• Encourage them to participate in community groups, faith based organizations, student government and school clubs and projects.
• Be a mentor to youth
• Look into opportunities for young people to take courses that include or even require community service

How can the Volunteer Center help?  We work with a number of different kinds of groups and organizations.

• School administrators, teachers, service advisors -- to develop or enhance strategies for community service/service learning in their schools.
• Students, youth organizations and service clubs -- to develop and plan service programs and projects strengthening their sense of civic engagement and supporting the important role that youth play in making our world a better place.
• Programs and agencies that engage volunteers -- to help them understand the value of youth volunteers and to help them to develop strategies for engaging and managing youth volunteers.
• Youth-serving organizations shelters, health care organizations, after-school programs, etc. –- to help the youth they serve gain civic awareness and understand the important role they can play in their community.

Tell Us What You Think!
Let us know what other kinds of information you want to know about volunteering. Bergen VolunTEENS wants to be your best source of information, so email us at demery@bergenvolunteers.org or call 201-489-9454, ext. 118.

Share your stories!
Send us stories and photos about what you are doing in the community. We’ll share what you’re doing with others who check this website. Don’t be shy!  What you are doing may spark ideas in others and inspire a fabulous movement!

Youth Advisory Council

The Volunteer Center’s involvement in youth volunteering is guided by our Youth Advisory Council, a group of educators and administrators in the public and private education systems, leaders of community and faith-based organizations and students. The Council’s mission is to promote volunteerism and community service among youth resulting in an increase in the number of youth choosing to make an impact on their community.

Youth Volunteer Quick Links

Youth Service America
http://www.ysa.org/
This site provides information about how youth can actively and profoundly make the changes they want to see in the world through volunteersism.

Kids Care Club
http://www.kidscare.org/
Kids Care Clubs provides young people with hands-on volunteer opportunities to help others in their local and global communities.

For more Youth Volunteer Links click here.