Ohio Campus Compact MLK CHALLENGE

Host Campus Application

An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of
his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.

- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

The MLK Challenge

MLK Day Challenge 2009 will mobilize 1000 college students and youth to complete service projects throughout the state of Ohio while reflecting on Dr. Kings life. Between four to nine campuses will organize projects throughout the state that assist local agencies in expanding or improving their abilities to help the people they serve. The MLK Challenge breaks down barriers amongst participants and between the students and their local community using a unique program model that frames the day as a challenge utilizing the resources, creativity, and planning ability of each team or group of young people. In addition to unifying diverse participants around a service project, the MLK Challenge provides opportunities for participants to reflect upon, honor, and celebrate the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

MLK Challenge Project Model

On January 19, 2009, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the MLK Challenge will mobilize campuses to recruit 1,000 college students and youth to complete between 8-18 service projects throughout Ohio and reflect on the life of Dr. King. The MLK Challenge, created in 2000 by Appalachian State University, through the ACT program (Appalachian & the Community Together) is a day of service projects but with a twist. For the Challenge, groups are determined on a random basis. Groups are assigned a service challenge in a random fashion. With basic instruction and a final goal, the challenge resides with the group. Each group will brainstorm ways in which their project will be completed. Teams garnish resources to achieve their goal, supplemented by seed money, and work together through the completion of the project. An MLK Challenge howto toolkit will be provided, as well as an

informational website, suggested evaluation measures, budgets/expenses guidelines, and other helpful mechanisms. Selection of Host Campuses All Ohio Campus Compact member campuses are eligible to apply to serve as a Host Campus. Each Host Campus is responsible for hosting a regional MLK Challenge. They will recruit participants from their campus as well as from the Ohio Campus Compact campuses in their region. Preference will be given to Host Campus applicants that partner with local schools or agencies to recruit youth volunteers, with special emphasis on disadvantaged youth. All applicants must also demonstrate how they will accomplish 15% minority involvement. Selection of Projects The MLK Challenge selects projects based on requests of a local community agency, placing priority on the project with greatest need for completion. Host Campuses are encouraged to look for projects that are not necessarily the agencys normal group volunteer need (e.g., interaction with clients), but one that they wish they had the time or resources to complete. The challenges will primarily be manual/physical labor and all projects will allow participating agencies to expand or improve their abilities to help those they serve. Host Campus Expectations All Host Campuses will be responsible for the following: Planning Committee Develop a MLK Challenge Planning Committee, composed of students and staff from the host campus, as well as any Ohio Campus Compact member campuses in the local region and community partners The Planning Committee is responsible for project planning, recruiting volunteers, and marketing Orientation, Reflection, and Celebration Incorporate reflection and integration of Martin Luther King, Jr. throughout the days events, including the orientation and closing sessions Provide participants with the opportunity to take the MLK Year Challenge asking participants to pledge 50 additional hours in the upcoming year. Registration, Data Collection, and Evaluations Register all participants Complete a Project Report at the conclusion of the project Require all participants to complete an evaluation during the closing session What Ohio Campus Compact Will Provide A $500-$1000 minigrant for each Host Campus to assist with cost of resources An MLK Challenge howto toolkit An informational website

 Access to materials to utilize during the orientation

Application Deadline

September 15, 2008

Preferred application submission method is by email
Mail, email, or fax this form to: Brandon Donelson-Sims: Program Director of Student Outreach/VISTA Leader 615 N. Pear Street Granville, Ohio 43023 Fax: 740-587-8569 occleader@alink.com Phone: 740-587-8568

Host Campus Application

MLK CHALLENGE

Experience
YES X NO____ Have you ever hosted an MLK service event? Martin Luther King Day 2008 was the first year Bowling Green State University held a service event in corporation with the BGSU MLK Legacy Committee. With no budget and only one month of planning, students and staff decided to add a service component to their annual MLK Legacy Week.

A committee of staff and students worked to create a service project incorporating BGSU students, area teens and senior citizens. The event was a Collaborative Art Project and Civil Rights Discussion between teens, students/staff from BGSU, and Wood County Corps members. The event also included a peace walk and rally in memory of Dr. King. The art projects created by the students were sold by silent auction at the Myrlie Evers-Williams speech held later in the week. The speech was attended by campus and community members. Through our efforts we were able to raise over $200 for the BG Teen Center. MLK Day 2008 had a total of 36 participants. Last year's event was a success with the amount of time and resources available. BGSU Office of Service-Learning hopes to improve the 2009 service project with the MLK Challenge grant and establish it as an annual event.

MLK Challenge Service Event

What are your plans for MLK 2009? Are you interested in replicating or integrating the MLK Challenge model? BGSU is very interested in replicating and/or integrating a challenge model!

Title: Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service Challenge at BGSU Problem Need: 1. Students at Bowling Green State University do not understand the significance of MLK day. Less than 30 students at BGSU participated in the 2008 Martin Luther King Day activities. There are very few program offerings for students during their day off. 2. There needs to be a stronger connection between BGSU and local non-profit community service organizations. By building stronger relationships, students will be more connected to the community, and community members perspectives of the university and its students will become more positive. 3. There is a need for diversity/tolerance/acceptance education on and off campus. As a small, rural community with little diversity, over 75% of the Bowling Green population is white (American Factfinder, 2000) and a campus with little diversity, 81% of undergraduate student population is white (BGSU, 2007) there is not widespread acceptance and understanding of social justice issues. Goals and Objectives: 1. Build lasting partnerships/relationships between university members and community members with community agencies/organizations. 2. Develop student learning on societal problems/issues and on social justice issues. 3. Expand the events offered as part of the MLK Legacy Committee. 4. Increase co-curricular service-learning opportunities for the BGSU Community.
Activities/Methods: Each year a BGSU MLK Legacy Committee convenes and organizes MLK celebration events. Currently, the Office of the Vice President for Student Affairs has not named a Legacy Committee Chair. The former chair has been notified that the Office of Service-Learning is taking the lead on the service component and the office will begin planning. We will assemble a planning committee of 12 people made of students, community members, and staff. This committee will be charged with finding

and setting up 12 agencies or sites, as well as the registration of volunteers and training of team leaders. (See Fig. 1 for a breakdown of committee members).

Fig. 1 Organization Office of Service-Learning Office of Campus Activities Greek Service Organizations Service Scholarship Orgs Faculty/Staff Cultural Student Orgs Community Partners Misc. Open Invitation (Students/Other Institutions) Total

# of Reps 2 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 12

The committee will begin to be formed in September by the project director, Lesa Shouse, after securing of funding. Mrs. Shouse is a graduate student in the Office of Service-Learning and will donate 50% of her time amounting to 10 hours per week to the committee. Most of the committee will consist of student leaders from various organizations on campus. By students taking a lead in this project, they will have a vested interest and take ownership in the project, and help in their development of important planning skills and responsibility. There will be one student leader, Patrick Grayshaw, a senior, who will take on the role of co-chair with the project director. This student will contribute at least 10 hours a week to this project. Representatives from this committee will serve on the MLK Legacy Committee, once formed.
The committee will be broken down into subcommittees. These committees will include 1. Agency Coordination 2. Marketing and Public Relations - Advertise for participants and get news interested. 3. Registration & Training 4. Logistics After students have registered to be a part of the MLK Challenge, they will be assigned to one of 12 groups. We will have training for all team leaders, and provide MLK t-shirts, so that these leaders are easily identifiable by their team members and the agency contacts. Each team will be sent to their site with

$100 seed money. The group will determine how to use with their seed money in benefit of their agency. After groups have completed their challenge, they will return to BGSU campus for a closing session. During the closing session, groups will take time to process their experience, and then report to the entire assembly, In a reflective manner, the details of their challenge. Depending on funding being secured, this could be a large scale celebration event, in which all of campus is invited to, with food and entertainment to celebrate the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Evaluation: There will be evaluation forms to be given to all participants. Questions will record quantitative data about the actual logistics and overall success of the program, as well as qualitative collection of the information from reflection questions regarding the service project.

Formative: Summative:

Biweekly meetings will allow committee members to provide feedback on the planning process. At each meeting there will be a time for open comments and suggestions. Evaluation and reflection sheets will be given to all participants both students and community partners. These will be collected at the concluding session and by electronic mail.

The data from these evaluations will be summarized in a report to be provided by March 1, 2009. The report will be submitted to Ohio Campus Compact and the appropriate BGSU campus administrators.

References: American Fact Finder, Bowling Green Census. (2000). Retrieved 23 July 2008 from http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/SAFFFacts?_event=Search&geo_id=&_geoContext =&_street=&_county=bowling+green&_cityTown=bowling+green&_state=04000US39 &_zip=&_lang=en&_sse=on&pctxt=fph&pgsl=010&show_2003_tab=&redirect=Y Bowling Green State University. (2007) Institutional Research Headcount and Student Characteristics. http://www.bgsu.edu/offices/ir/factbook/student/headcounten/RACE.htm Corporation for National and Community Service. (2008). Overview. Retrieved 23 July 2008 from http://www.mlkday.gov/about/overview/index.asp

Volunteer Recruitment
Please describe the number of students you plan to involve (keep in mind that the overall Ohio number of volunteers must be 1000 across 4-9 campuses). We have a goal of 200 people participating in the event. We plan to involve around 20 people as planning committee members. We will have approximately 28 members of Wood County Corps participate in the challenge, and about 24 of those are students. How do you plan to meet or exceed the expected volunteer recruitment outcomes? A comprehensive marketing plan will help us to meet our participation goals. This marketing plan will include: Advertise pre-winter break to make students aware of the service projects. Request exposure by BGNews, the campus newspaper, prior to event. Contact all 315 campus organizations to outreach to them, through a combination of flyers, emails, and presentations. Create a Facebook group to generate student interest Describe your strategies to recruit youth and disadvantaged youth from the community. We plan to work with the BG Teen Center which supports local teens, with a place to be during the after school hours. We will work with the Teen Center to outreach to local schools. We will contact local agencies that target disadvantaged youth before other agencies. How will you accomplish the 15% minority involvement? We plan to recruit planning committee members from the minority campus organizations. By placing those members in a leadership position, we hope they will attract other minority students to get involved with the MLK Challenge.

Reaching a 15% minority involvement will be committee's greatest and most important challenge, considering the small campus population of minorities.

Community Partners
Please list the number of community partners you will work with (at least 3). How do you plan to meet or exceed the expected outcomes for partnering with community agencies? Describe possible types of partnerships you will create or continue with this project. Established Partners: United Way - A continuing partner with the Office of Service-Learning Wood County Corps (WCC) - We have established the Wood County Corps program as a partner for this project. WCC will serve as team leaders for the challenge groups. WCC has established partnerships with 18 service sites in Wood, Lucas, and Ottawa Counties. BG Teen Central - We have established the Teen Center as a partner for this project. The Teen Center will be closed for the Christmas break period and will not open until after MLK Day, it will be a perfect opportunity for help preparing the teen center for reopening.
Possible Community Partners (yet to be determined): Family Resource Center Family and Child Abuse Prevention Center Cocoon Shelter The Loft Youth Center Wood County District Public Library Wood County Parks District WSOS Family Development

Martha's Kitchen Wood County Agency on Aging Bowling Green City Schools

Campus Mobilization
As a Host Campus, you are expected to mobilize other campuses in your region, if possible. How will you mobilize other campuses to be involved in both the planning of and participation in this event? We will invite members from other local campuses to become part of the planning process. We will have them ask their students to participate in the challenge. These campuses could include: BGSU Firelands, Owens Community College, University of Toledo, and University of Findlay. Members of the Wood County Corps come from all over Wood County and there are students from other campuses such as Owens Community College. There will be participation in the project from at least one other institution.

Budget
Tentative budget - We plan to use the majority of the grant money as seed money for each of the groups to use for their agencies as part of the MLK Challenge. Each group will be charged with agreeing on how to use the money to help the agency they were assigned to. Committee members will work to raise enough money to provide each team with $100 in seed money, raising $50 per team to match grant money received. The Office of Service-Learning will donate office supplies for committee members (i.e. copy paper, toner, etc.) T-Shirts for team leaders and planning committee 35 @ $3.25 = $113.75 12.00 for Shipping Seed money for 12 teams at $50 a team = $600.00 (Amount Awarded)
Total Requested from OCC: $725. 75 Any other required funds for the project will be sought out through campus departments and through fundraising.

DEADLINE FOR THIS APPLICATION IS SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

Preferred application submission method is by email
Mail, email, or fax this form to: Brandon Donelson-Sims 615 N. Pear Street Granville, Ohio 43023 Fax: 740-587-8569 occleader@alink.com