Fall 2024
Fall 2024
Greetings from the Office of Service-Learning!
What a wonderful semester for service-learning at UGA. Our team recently gathered at my home for some festive cheer — with a few white elephants and a couple Elvis squirrels — to celebrate a semester full of student learning through community engagement.
I am so proud to share with all of you the innovative work that the OSL supports across the University of Georgia's campus and in the community with our fall semester in review.
Thank you to all our partners on campus and throughout our growing community. We are all looking forward to a productive and collaborative 2025!
Continue scrolling to see our highlights and latest news from fall 2024.
Shannon Brooks
Director
Office of Service-Learning
Fall 2024
by the numbers
This fall, 152 service-learning course sections were taught across the University of Georgia by 75 instructors.
More than 2,800 students enrolled in these courses and served nearly 115,000 hours in the community.
This service amounts to an estimated $3.6 million in direct benefit to partner organizations in Athens and beyond.
Experience UGA hosted 63 field trips for 4,915 students in the Clarke County School District. Students in PreK, Kindergarten, first, second, third, fifth, seventh, and tenth grade enjoyed trips across UGA's campus.
Our 2024 cohort of 32 Experience UGA Ambassadors served for a total of 2,827 hours this fall alongside 200 student volunteers, who helped organize these trips.
Special thanks to our 12 campus partners: Campus Kitchen at UGA, the College of Environment and Design, the College of Pharmacy, the College of Public Health, the Department of Theatre and Film Studies, the Georgia Museum of Art, Mary Frances Early College of Education, Ramsey Student Center, State Botanical Garden of Georgia, the UGA Trial Gardens, UGArden, and the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, for helping us host these trips this fall.
Campus Kitchen at UGA collected about 18,000 pounds of food from organizations and businesses in the community. This food was turned into almost 4,700 prepared meals and 1,100 grocery bags that were delivered to members of the community facing food insecurity.
566 student volunteers joined Campus Kitchen for at least one cooking or delivery shift this fall. 43 student volunteers took on the role of shift leader.
This semester, Campus Kitchen served 11 agencies in our community, including Advantage Homeless Day Service Center, Athens Area Homeless Shelter, Athens Community Council on Aging, Bigger Vision Homeless Shelter, Covenant Presbyterian Church Food Pantry, Divas Who Win, Family Connection-Communities in Schools of Athens, Freedom From Bondage, Live Forward, Our Daily Bread Community Kitchen, and Timothy Road Baptist Church.
To date, Campus Kitchen at UGA has collected almost 575,000 pounds of food. That's enough food to fill more than 14 semi-trucks floor to ceiling or layer an entire football field.
This fall, Coaching4Success kicked off in partnership with the Clarke County School District's Youth Development Initiative, and UGA students had the opportunity to work with four elementary schools in the district, H.B. Stroud, Oglethorpe Avenue, Johnny Lay Burks, and Bettye Henderson Holston.
More than 50 UGA students volunteered to become academic coaches and met with 80 student athletes to discuss how skills on the field benefit their studies in the classroom and vice versa.
This program will continue to expand to more schools next semester!
The AmeriCorps Community Food Fellows program celebrated its second year this fall with 23 new AmeriCorps Community Food Fellows.
This semester, the AmeriCorps Fellows served more than 3,200 hours in the community across 18 different organizations dedicated to reducing food insecurity and food waste. The fellows helped prepare about 11,700 meals with these organizations and helped benefit 6,600 clients.
This program continues to build partnerships with local and campus organizations, including Athens Community Council on Aging, Bigger Vision of Athens, the Children's Garden at the State Botanical Garden of Georgia, the Clarke County School District, City of Refuge, Concrete Jungle, Covenant Presbyterian Church, Downtown Ministries, Farm 2 Neighborhood, FarmRx, the Food Bank of Northeast Georgia, Marigold Collective, Our Daily Bread, Shell to Shore, UGA Office of Sustainability, UGArden, and ULead.
The Office of Service-Learning also continues to coordinate the AmeriCorps VISTA program in Athens. This fall, VISTAs served with four organizations: City of Refuge, UGArden, Marigold Collective, and Envision Athens.
Across these four organizations, the VISTAs helped manage a total of 1,124 volunteers who served nearly 1,600 total hours.
Their service amounts to almost $12,500 value in resources for members of the community, including nearly 823,000 pounds of food.
Thank you to all the students, staff, faculty, and volunteers from the University and our community for making our work possible!
Experience UGA Wins International Award
Over the summer, Experience UGA was recognized for its impact in the community with the 2024 International Town & Gown Association (ITGA) Presidential Excellence Award. The award was presented at this year’s ITGA Annual Conference, “The Power of Partnerships: Solving Grand Challenges Together,” held at the University of Maryland in College Park, Maryland.
“Out of all the nominations this year, Experience UGA stood apart from others by encompassing the award values of leadership, volunteerism and service. Experience UGA is an impressive program bringing together community leaders, university staff and students, and local schools on a yearly collaborative program, inviting K-12 students to discover the possibilities of attending college on a fun, educational field trip. It’s a simple program idea that takes a lot of coordination and has a tremendous impact for generations to come.”
A message from our 2024 Ambassador Cohort
Watch our latest video below to hear how
Experience UGA is making a difference.
Dishing out acts of service
12th annual UGA Turkeypalooza helps record number of families
by Savannah Peat
photos by Chamberlain Smith and Andrew Davis Tucker
Over 1,300 Athens community members will have meals for Thanksgiving and the days beyond thanks to the University of Georgia’s 12th annual Turkeypalooza.
The Campus Kitchen at UGA, a program coordinated by the University of Georgia’s Office of Service-Learning, partners each fall with the Athens Community Council on Aging, UGArden and Public Service and Outreach to provide meals for food insecure residents.
“Many people are shocked by the numbers of people in Athens who are living paycheck to paycheck or living right on the line. It’s great people want to get involved around this time of year, but it is a year-round issue, and it never goes away.”
AmeriCorps Food Fellows serve Athens through growing partnerships
This fall, the University of Georgia Office of Service-Learning kicked off its second year of the AmeriCorps Community Food Fellows program with 23 new fellows eager to serve the Athens community.
“Last year, our fellows did a fantastic job connecting with organizations and provided hundreds of hours of invaluable hands-on service. I am so excited for this year’s cohort to build on these relationships and develop new partnerships across more organizations and expand our reach to benefit even more members of our community.”
Throughout the year, AmeriCorps fellows provide leadership within the Athens area partner organizations and develop their own skills, gaining experience in teamwork, communications, volunteer management, nonprofit management, and fundraising. The program also builds a deep understanding of food insecurity and food waste and connects these issues to the fellows’ existing areas of study or expertise.
“It’s been awesome,” said Supatcha Saengpratoom, an applied biotechnology major with a biomedical emphasis and a minor in business from Cobb County. “I get to do what I love; I get to be outside. And I like how we have so many choices to find our passion and give back to the community.”
UGA Service-Learning in Action at East Jackson
by Wes Mayer
With support from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, the University of Georgia’s Office of Service-Learning and East Jackson Comprehensive High School are growing their partnership to introduce service-learning to a younger generation.
This fall, the Office of Service-Learning received a $240,000 grant from the USDA to expand service-learning opportunities at East Jackson. The grant will support interdisciplinary, project-based learning centered around reducing food insecurity in Jackson County. UGA will help develop service-learning classes connected to high school curriculum which utilize school gardens and greenhouses, incorporate agricultural partnerships and address real-world challenges.
“It’s inspiring being able to engage with high school students and teachers through this grant. This partnership allows our office to combine both our instruction and public service missions and provide students with hands-on experience working in and with their community and school.”
Support our work
A one-time or recurring donation to service-learning at the University of Georgia empowers students to engage deeply with the community in ways that enhance their education. Your generosity bridges academics with pressing community needs and fosters work that creates lasting impact locally, statewide and internationally.
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