Service Column: SNC's Best-Kept Service Secret

M3C. To some, these three letters may seem like yet another acronym on an already acronym-flooded campus. However, as cliché as this sounds, M3C is much more than that. It represents a campus service group that 17 St. Norbert students-myself included-are privileged to take part. We certainly have a lot to celebrate this year. First thing's first: the name. M3C stands for Midwest Campus Compact Citizen Scholar. (Can you blame us for shortening it?) It is an extension of the nationwide AmeriCorps program that is aimed specifically at college campuses.

While most AmeriCorps volunteers are sent all over the country, M3C Fellows, as they are called, complete 300 hours of service over the course of a calendar year on their campus and in the surrounding community.

This year's program consists of twelve first year student fellows, four sophomore mentors, and one sophomore intern. Nancy Mathias, associate director of leadership & service, oversees the whole group. The group may be small, but M3C fellows have been present at almost every major service event on campus, as well as making themselves available to service events and organizations in the De Pere and Green Bay communities.

Due, in part, to AmeriCorps's policy that requires each campus program to form partnerships with the organizations they volunteer with, the M3C Fellows have had so much success making lasting connections with community service organizations such as the Family and Childcare Resource Center. This year our program has formed 46 partnerships with community organizations and on-campus departments, such as admissions.

Our most rewarding partnership has been the Helping One Student to Succeed (HOSTS) tutoring program at Jefferson Elementary School in Green Bay. The fellows go to Jefferson up to three times a week to work with students on their reading and comprehension skills.

Many of the fellows are surprised at how much they have come to care about the students they work with, and how big of an impact HOSTS has had on them. In responding to a survey about the M3C program, one of the fellows wrote, "Knowing that I am helping someone succeed and possibly break the trend of generational poverty makes me so happy. I'm so proud of the children and I am learning to work with children in a way that I never thought I would have been able to before." Emotional connections and personal growth are clearly a part of being an M3C Fellow, but 2,840.75 completed hours of service since August earns some bragging rights as well!

My role in the M3C program is that of a mentor. There are four mentors and one intern, all of whom were in the program as fellows last year. I can speak from experience and say this has been just as rewarding an experience as being a fellow. In my mind, the best part of the year was having the opportunity to give a presentation about our M3C program at the Marquette Leadership Conference in November. That, plus working on our own service hours and planning meetings has made this a busy experience for all of us, but one that has been well worth it. Getting the chance to improve upon last year's program has been really exciting, and, with space for nine fellows, three mentors, and one intern for next year's program, it will be exciting to see how the program will be transformed in the future.

To sum up everything the M3C program is trying to accomplish through service, I'll employ a phrase often heard at many SNC leadership training programs: the ripple effect. M3C Fellows have been using service to not only create positive change on campus and in the community, but to plant seeds in the minds of our community's youth that they too have endless possibilities open to them.

Recently, fellow Leah Korth '12 organized Kids to Campus, which brought HOSTS students from Jefferson to SNC so they could have their first view of college life. Fellow Joe Susag '12 was also a driving force behind this month's Admission Possible, which gave high school students from the Twin Cities an opportunity to be hosted by SNC students.

Each participant in the program this year has done a fantastic job of bringing his or her own ideas to the table. The M3C program has done a great job of creating lasting change, not only in terms of community partnerships and campus events, but also in transforming individual students into young adults who authentically care about the world around them. I will let the words of one of the fellows speak for themselves. "I feel like I've become more aware of community needs, and the more I do M3C, the more I want to do.