What is Service Learning?

Service learning is when a school or organization gives back to the community by helping out certain places and supporting other people who need help. This relationship of service learning between the school and community is mutual because when students give back, they learn about how important it is and how it can help you become successful.

I have had many personal experiences with community service. I first started in 2008 when i went with my mom to downtown Atlanta to go feed the homeless. after that, we started to go once a month since then. Then I got enrolled into Crossroads where community service is part of the whole academic system. You will not be able to graduate from crossroads unless you have a certain amount of learn and serve hours.

Service learning has almost always been apart of my life. I have always been taught to give back. My mom is always giving. She always try to teach me that giving is better than receiving. After coming to crossroads, I finally understand what she really means

Relating gardening to life.

Gardening can be very symbolic to life. pulling weeds, planting trees, planting flowers, seeing a finished product, and providing care and attention to plants are all examples of gardening and character.
Pulling weeds helps you realize what destructive decisions you have been making and helps you how to remove them. Say that your life is a plant and these destructive decisions are weeds, if you let these destructive decisions grow too big, they could take over your life and maybe even kill you.
When you plant a tree, you must give the roots a good foundation for it to grow or else it could die. Without a good foundation, the tree could possibly fall over at the first blow of a wind. If the tree represents your values, and the wind represents peer pressure, you must plant your tree deep enough so that the wind will not knock the tree down. The thing about values are that they must hold up in tough times.
There are so many ways that you can relate gardening into life. These are just a few examples that I learned while working with Mr. Shirley.

The Greenhouse

The greenhouse is actually called a community greenhouse because we will be giving back to the community. We will be raising a certain type of worm to help farm and cultivate the land. These worms are very important in farming and agriculture. We will also be growing fruits and vegetables and selling them to the public.

The greenhouse will also be a great time for people and students to learn how to work together and team build. With Mr. Shirley as the coordinator, he will always be relating things to real life situations and showing us how to live our life better. Without Mr. Shirley, I would have never understood how important my life, education, and my purpose in life is. I am glad Crossroads built a greenhouse because with the greenhouse, my students can learn about how important there life's are and one day will understand purpose.