ZEBULON — East Wake Academy is the first high school in the country to team up with the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Partnership Foundation for a learning service program, Headmaster Brandon Smith announced last Wednesday. The charter school that has doubled in size in seven years was selected for the Carter Academic Service Entrepreneur grant program.

A Raleigh-area selection committee will award a student a $1,000 grant to implement a community service project and a $500 scholarship.

“It will be an ongoing partnership,” said Jana Allen, community partnership coordinator. “The grant availability will be given to our students each year. ...We’re looking to the foundation as being a viable resource, not just for our grant application, but to assist our students in academic service learning projects.”

Making the connection

The program promotes service learning or “learn and serve,” a new educational concept now implemented in 30 percent of the schools across the country, Smith said.

The grants are awarded to students to create projects that use their academic knowledge in community service work, said Robert Heightchew, executive director of the Carter foundation.

In the past, the program has been limited to higher education, but the foundation decided to expand it to high schools, said Heightchew.

Three schools — a public and a private school in Atlanta, and East Wake Academy, representing charter schools — have been chosen.

The foundation hadn’t considered selecting a charter school until the East Wake staff contacted them and convinced them to do so, Smith said.

The connection between East Wake Academy and the Carter foundation has a serendipitous twist to it.

Smith, who watches the History cable channel before work, caught a show about the Carter Foundation’s community service work one morning.

He researched it and found out about the service learning project and asked Allen to research it further.

When Smith called the organization, he discovered they had just decided to expand the program into high schools.

“It actually gave me chills,” said Smith.

Ready for the challenge

“We wanted a partner who was fully capable of almost acting like a college and we believe East Wake (Academy) has that characteristic,” Heightchew said.

A new requirement in North Carolina public schools requires students to participate in a community service project before graduating. It goes into effect in 2010, said Allen.

To prepare, the academy has created the Care and Share-Rural Wellness Outreach, a project that will place students with non-profit partners. Its focus will be projects that create a healthy community. Allen said the Carter project will enhance their in-house learn and serve efforts.

Service Learning

Heightchew said service learning is learning through experience. The emphasis reinforces teaching from the classroom while students make a contribution to their community.

For example, a nutrition major in Oklahoma realized many senior adults ignored physician recommendations to eat healthy foods because they liked their old favorites. The student tailored recipes using the seniors’ favorite foods with ingredients and preparation techniques that created meals that adhered to doctors’ recommendations, but mimicked the taste of those favorite foods, Heightchew said.

She then created a cookbook with those recipes and held classes for the seniors that had exhibited a reluctance to eat healthy. At the announcement assembly, students at East Wake Academy heard how an N.C. State University bioengineering student learned from her volunteer experience in a small village in Nicaragua.

Molly Widmyer said she used her classroom knowledge to repair medical equipment in the village. Eighty percent of hospital equipment does not work in developing countries, she said.

The exposure to fixing equipment helps her create new equipment and devices, what she is learning to do as a biomedical engineering student.

She also told students the experience helps them earn college scholarships and acceptance into college.

The program’s benefits to the academy Smith said the program also promotes the school where 40 percent of the student body made honor roll last quarter.

East Wake Academy’s connection is listed on the Carter Foundation Web site.

“We’ve just opened the door to East Wake Academy and Zebulon to the entire world,” he said.

“I think former President Jimmy Carter is widely recognized for his humanitarian efforts.”

“I’m excited because it gives kids an opportunity to serve the community and get scholarships,” said Assistant Headmaster Darrell Johnson. “I think it’s great.”

Fifty-four students signed a paper, expressing an interest in the program at the end of the announcement assembly.

Kierstee Hamryazek said she could use math skills in renovating a homeless shelter and that she would also gain leadership skills from participating.

“It can help a small community a lot because small communities don’t get much funding,” said Mikhail DePrefontaine, a student at the school who lives in Wendell. “And it can be a lot of help (to the community.)”