About the Inspired to Serve Pilot Project

I2S

Inspired to Serve: Youth-Led Interfaith Action was a three-year pilot project (2006-2009) to enhance the capacity of churches, mosques, synagogues, temples, and other faith-based organizations to engage young people in effective service-learning that increases interfaith cooperation, contributes to healthy development, and enriches community life.

 

The model combines Interfaith Youth Core’s innovative model of interfaith dialogue and service-learning with Search Institute’s framework of Developmental Assets and its asset-based approach to community and social change.

 

The model continues beyond the pilot project through this online tool kit and through the ongoing efforts of the national and city partners.

Download a two-page fact sheet about the pilot project.

Partners

By the Numbers

Some facts and figures from across the three years of the Inspired to Serve pilot project (all four partner cities):

  • Total number of service-learning participants: 1,071
  • Total number of youth volunteers: 2,871
  • Total number of service hours performed by youth: 15,000
  • Total number of adult volunteers and allies: 1,697
  • Total number of community partner organizations: 369

Major Pilot Project Activities

Each pilot city designed its own model of engaging youth in interfaith service-learning. The national project provided the following supports to the four pilot cities:
  • Participation in the annual Martin Luther King Day of Service, Global Youth Service Day, and Days of Interfaith Service
  • Training and technical assistance in interfaith dialogue, asset building, service-learning, using social media, project sustainability, and related issues.
  • Opportunities for peer networking and learning through regular conference calls and an annual all-site meeting.
  • Subgrantee funding to support core project activities, including mini-grants to local innovations.
  • Tools and resources to support site activities.
  • Evaluation of site activities through both internal and external evaluation.

Articles and Media Coverage

Short Takes of Site Activities

  • Using art, poetry, video as tools for discussion, reflection, and sharing stories.
  • Learning about issue of lead poisoning and ways to educate the community about its effects.
  • Working collaboratively with other groups in the community.
  • Listening to stories from survivors and liberators in the Holocaust and then telling own stories of liberators.
  • Learning creative ways to learn from each other: peer-to-peer; “speed faithing” with teams of religious leaders and youth; exploring how to ask questions; meeting in worship spaces to learn traditions.
  • Trying an “interfaith scavenger hunt” to encourage active learning about diverse faith traditions.
  • Joining in shared meals with faith communities.
  • Sharing stories of transforming interfaith encounters.
  • Training a board of religiously diverse youth to be young philanthropists.
  • Awarding mini-grants to local service-learning projects.
  • Focusing on environmental activities, such as learning about permaculture, planting edible gardens, cleaning parks, and clearing areas for children to play.
  • Including youth on neighborhood recovery boards to increase religious organizations' involvement in all aspects of community renewal and recovery.
  • Forming “poetry pals” among diverse youth as a way of sharing learnings and insights from serving.
  • Exploring commonalities, religious stereotypes, and faith through creating a documentary film and an outreach curriculum to share and facilitate with other groups of youth to encourage discussions about faith, identity, understanding, and common values.