Leading statewide higher education coalition will make grants available for change-making student-led service and service-learning projects that will aid those hardest hit by the economic crisis and help California achieve a more innovative, green and sustainable future.

San Francisco, CA – To catalyze and mobilize California colleges and universities to aid in the state’s recovery and renewal, California’s only statewide coalition dedicated to ensuring higher education’s civic purposes today announced that it will make up to six grants available as part of the second phase of its Social Innovation Generation: Student Leadership Initiative. California Campus Compact’s Social Innovation Generation: Student Leadership Initiative encourages and supports change-making student-led service and service-learning projects that will not only aid those hardest hit by California’s economic crisis, but also help California emerge from the crisis with a more innovative, green and sustainable economic future.

“California higher education institutions have long served as incubators of innovation,” said Elaine Ikeda, executive director of California Campus Compact. “We truly believe that the energy and spirit to serve, lead and transform cascades among inspired college students throughout California—and it is that spirit that we hope to harness with this grant opportunity.”

California Campus Compact is funding Social Innovation Generation: Student Leadership Initiative and a second initiative, Social Innovation Generation: California Recovery and Renewal Initiative, through a three-year Learn and Serve America Higher Education grant of $1.3 million from the Corporation for National and Community Service. Through both initiatives, California Campus Compact will work with more than 85 campuses, 20,000 undergraduate and graduate students, 500 faculty, staff and administrators and 300 nonprofit organizations.

A detailed Request for Proposals for the second phase of Social Innovation Generation: Student Leadership Initiative is available at www.cacampuscompact.org along with information on how to register for a one-hour technical assistance conference call, scheduled for March 10, 2010. To apply for this grant opportunity, colleges and universities must be current members of California Campus Compact. The application deadline is May 5, 2010.

Social Innovation Generation: Student Leadership Initiative Phase One Grantees

On January 1, 2010, California Campus Compact announced the three grantees selected to participate in the first phase of Social Innovation Generation: Student Leadership Initiative. They are:

California State University, Chico. With the city of Chico’s increasing number of home foreclosures and a poverty rate that is almost double that of the state, more than a quarter of its residents now live below the poverty line. To help nonprofit organizations in the city meet the needs of a growing population in crisis, Community Action Volunteers in Education, a program of the Associated Students at California State University, Chico, is developing Chico Homeless Advocates. Through this program, student leaders will provide outreach and support to homeless individuals and families along with volunteer hours to support the staff of shelters, meal, job-training, counseling and mental health outreach programs. California State University, Chico is collaborating on the Chico Homeless Advocates Program with the City of Chico, Greater Chico Homeless Task Force, Torres Community Shelter, Jesus Center Kitchen and the Sixth Street Drop-in Center.

“These community agencies desperately need volunteers, and through this program we hope to provide a regular stream of student-volunteers to support their efforts,” said Mary Flynn, program administrator for Community Action Volunteers in Education. “Students will receive extensive training before they begin to volunteer, and we believe that through this experience, they will gain a greater understanding and empathy for members of our community who struggle with issues related to hunger and homelessness.”

University of California, Los Angeles. To address the rising rate of childhood obesity among at-risk youth in Los Angeles, introduce and encourage healthier eating options and restart school garden programs lost to unprecedented budget cuts, University of California, Los Angeles’s 200-member E3: Ecology, Economy and Equity student group is partnering with Farm to School, a nationwide nonprofit organization that promotes healthy eating and improving school nutrition by connecting K-12 schools with local farms and maintaining school gardens. Through the partnership, students will be restarting school gardens and sustainable food programs in communities that have been most adversely impacted by California’s economic downturn while providing mentorship to middle school and high school youth through their collaborative work in the gardens.

“We are really looking forward to getting our hands dirty and working with the high school and middle school students to restart their schools’ gardens,” said DeeAnn Resk, a graduate student who helped develop the grant proposal in conjunction with the University of California Los Angeles’s Center for Community Learning. “We are very concerned about unequal access to healthy and local produce for students in disadvantaged communities, and we want to promote healthy eating among these youth and their families.”

University of Southern California. The area immediately surrounding the University of Southern California’s main campus is a low-income, high-transition, multi-ethnic community that is served by small nonprofit social service providers that confront all of the major problems found in center city areas, including stepped up rates of unemployment, homelessness and crime. University of Southern California students, in collaboration with nonprofit social service providers in the area, are developing a new initiative that ties into the campus’s well-established alternative spring break program. Students and community partners will engage in community mapping and dialogues to assess how local nonprofit organizations have been impacted by the economic downturn and then plan alternative spring break activities that will support these nonprofit organizations and fill the gap left by budget cuts.

“Through this process—with students and community organizations at the table together—some very tangible community needs will be addressed,” said Melissa Gaeke, director of the Volunteer Center at the University of Southern California. “Students will have the opportunity to really grapple with defining a problem and working through it to achieve an outcome in which the service they provide will truly fill a community need. “

About California Campus Compact

California Campus Compact is a coalition of leading colleges and universities that works to build the collective commitment and capacity of colleges, universities and communities throughout California to advance civic and community engagement for a healthy, just and democratic society. Through innovative programs and initiatives, grant funding, training and technical assistance, professional development and powerful research studies and publications, California Campus Compact each year invests in and champions more than 500,000 students, faculty members, administrators and community members involved in diverse and ground-breaking activities that support and expand civic and community engagement throughout California. For more information, please visit www.cacampuscompact.org.