The Answer - A blog about Education, Preparation, and Commitment.

YES Prep Students Know The Importance of Community Service

November 26, 2009 by Jeremy Jones

YES stands for "Youth Engaged in Service."  Upon our founding, Chris Barbic understood that to truly create change in the nation's fourth largest city, he would have to think long-term.  Designing a school around community service would increase the level of community engagement from students, parents and teachers.  A greater level of engagement leads to more investment.  Once students become truly invested in and take ownership of their communities, dynamic changes can occur. 

The YES Prep East End students organized a service trip to a sister campus, YES Prep South.  The East End Explorers spent a day with the South Cavaliers (all sixth graders) to read with them, provide mentorship on what it is like to be a YES Prep student, and help them with their homework.  This had such an impact on one East End student that she wrote the following account... 

"Service is important because we influence others while doing community service and we get an idea of what our goal as YES Prep student is. We do service at YES Prep because, as our school name says, we are “Youth Engaged in Service," meaning we help our community in a variety of ways.

During the day I went to tutor the 6th graders at YES Prep South, I knew that I was going to be a good, positive influence to these younger kids. It was cool to make friends from another YES family that were in a different grade and age group. The most exciting thing that happened was that I got asked for my phone number from a little girl whom I helped in her Social Studies class! The fact that she connected with me and trusted me enough to want to ask for help in the future was so special. I could tell the students there got a lot of help, not only from me, but from my other classmates as well. 

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