The Community Serve, a Youth Development Program
This new youth development program intends to merge performance-based activities associated with serve improvement (accuracy and velocity) with community service learning. The proposed service learning component seeks to instill in participants a sense of contributing to something bigger than themselves. Specifically, that adolescent youth can serve as an active community change agent and thus build a purpose-based identity as they grow towards adulthood. Thus, the simple symbol of serving a tennis ball may become a dual challenge of service to self and as well as to others. In sum, as participants work to improve their own tennis serve they also actively partake in a process of character development. These twofold purposes (performance & purpose) are to be cultivated over a time period of roughly six months between public events (May through November 2024). The timing of each of these two events coincide with key observance days of U.S. Veterans – Memorial and Veterans days. A special emphasis will be placed on serving veterans.