CivicWeek - What to Expect

Service Projects
Each group spends the bulk of their time during the week engaged in service projects in partnership with reputable local community organizations. Service projects vary according to the specific focus issue, but each allows meaningful opportunities for students to contribute to the work of the organization while interacting with clients, residents, and staff.

Community Experiences
Students truly get to know the communities in which they are working. They participate in facilitated community tours, talk with neighborhood residents, and attend local events and celebrations. Each group has the opportunity to experience firsthand not just the needs of the community they are serving, but its strengths and assets as well. Students typically meet with prominent business and political leaders, and visit significant cultural and historical sites.

Reflection
Staff members facilitate reflection each evening to give students an opportunity to process the events of the day. Activities such as discussions, debates, and individual journal writings are designed to help students connect what they are seeing and experiencing to broader lessons about social issues, leadership, and citizenship.

Community Living
CivicWeek participants are housed at community organizations or retreat centers in the heart of their host communities. Housing arrangements vary, but accommodations are typically simple and retreat-style, with shared bathrooms, kitchens, and common spaces. Working in small groups, students and staff prepare and serve meals for each other each evening.

Group Building
CivicWeek programs provide a tremendous opportunity for students to connect with diverse, motivated peers from communities across the country. This learning community is facilitated in part through fun and challenging group-building activities. Groups might be asked to pass each other through a giant "spider web" or find a way to cross an imaginary lava lake, all the while building trust, learning leadership skills, and discovering how to work as a team.

Recreation
While each day in a CivicWeek program is quite full, groups always have time for relaxation and fun. Downtime each evening allows students to relax, unwind, and socialize with their peers. In addition, no visit to a community is complete without the opportunity to explore some of its most notable recreational sites.

The National Association of Secondary School Principals has placed CivicWeek on the NASSP National Advisory List of Student Contests and Activities for 2007-2008.

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