Explanation of Service Categories:

The following is a breakdown of the categories:

1) Immediate Community: Learning to give back to your immediate community is an invaluable lesson. We invest the work of our hands and the care in our hearts as we give back to those groups which have also supported us. Some examples: serving current or former schools, serving your church/ faith community, service for your extra-curricular activities, etc.

            Up to 25% of the student's hours may be completed in this category.

2) Practical Work: There are numerous needs in our greater community that would greatly benefit from the time and talents of our students. In this category, students will give back to their community through hands-on work through different social service agencies in the area. Students' work benefits non-profits, the needy, the suffering, yet they aren't directly and personally involved with those they are helping. For example, they may be doing fundraising for Catholic Charitiies, but not interacting with the poor. They may be cleaning at Ronald McDonald house, but not interacting with the families there. They may sort food at Harvesters, but not work with the hungry.

Up to 35% of the student's hours may be completed in this category.

3) Working with Marginalized People: Recognizing the fact that our hearts change when we meet and interact with real people who have real needs, the final service category is working directly with people who are poor, suffering, marginalized, or oppressed. For this type of service, students work face-to-face with people who are poor, elderly, seriously ill, dying, disabled, immigrants, refugees, victims of abuse, etc.

A miniumum of 40% and up to 100% of the student’s service hours may be completed in this category.

NOTE: Some projects and service hours may fit into more than one category. In that case, the student should indicate the number of hours out of the total that should be attributed to each category.

Examples of Service in each Category

Immediate Community	Practical Work	Working with Marginalized People
Working at Sion’s Fall Festival	Re-stocking a food pantry	Helping people get their food at a food pantry
Working at the Fall Festival	Fundraising or collecting donations for Newhouse	Doing art projects with the kids at Newhouse
Doing liturgical roles at your church	Office work at a hospital	Visiting patients at a hospital or residents at a nursing home
Coaching a 5^th grade volleyball team	Planning and promoting a camp for inner city kids	Working at a camp for inner city kids
Helping at your old elementary school	Working at Re-Store for Habitat for Humanity	Working on a Habitat for Humanity home with the future homeowner
Assisting at a tournament for your year-round swim team	Painting a room at Holy Family House	Serving a meal to the poor at Holy Family House
Teaching Sunday school	Cleaning cages at Wayside Waifs	Working with the animals at Wayside Waifs
Giving tours for Sion’s Open House.	Recycling outside of what you do at home	Helping competitors at the Special Olympics
Running a dance camp for junior high girls.	Organizing the clothing closet for the Redemptorist Center	Teaching ESL