“Most people want to help and be a part of something good.” —Community–conversation participant

Service and volunteering is often the first thing people think of when they think about civic health.

This kind of service ranges from helping out at a local food pantry, to signing up to clean up a streambed on a weekend, to bringing meals to seniors who are not mobile. These are just a few examples of service. There are many more.

Volunteering and service are on the rise in many communities. “Most people want to help and be a part of something good,” said one community–conversation participant, in thinking about service and volunteering.

Maryland is the first and only state to require service–learning as a condition of high school graduation. This is an educational movement that connects concrete service opportunities to classroom instruction. The State of Maryland has a requirement for all Maryland high school students to participate in 75 hours of service–learning in order to graduate. In the 2008–2009 year, 4 million students engaged in 11,451 service–learning projects across the 24 school systems; the Maryland Department of Education estimates that the volunteer time of 2008 graduates contributed $42 million in value throughout Maryland. While most of these student volunteers are not reected in the Civic Health Index, research has shown a link between quality service–learning programs and later civic activities as an adult.

Maryland ranks 23rd among states for volunteering among residents age 16 and older in 2009. Among these Marylanders, 29.4% report volunteering at least once in the previous 12 months. This is slightly ahead of the national rate, which is 26.8%.

Community–conversation participants explicitly (and positively) linked adult service with what happens in schools: “Kids who go through service–learning keep it going,” said one.

Participants in the Civic Literacy Summit, most of whom are educators, felt that more progress could be made on this indicator if deeper attention were paid to the role of civic education (including service–learning) in school. Research suggests that a key determinant of the effectiveness of service–learning in fostering civic behaviors is the quality of the program. “Service–learning has never really had funding,” said one Summit participant. “That has created lack of training, implementation, and inconsistency.”

Another challenge to cultivating greater service, according to Summit participants, comes as a result of the high–accountability culture Maryland has fostered in education. In some respects this is driven by the No Child Left Behind act. “Thousands of schools across the nation are responding to the reading and math testing requirements . . . by reducing class time spent on other subjects and, for some low–prociency students, eliminating it,” according to a March 26, 2006 New York Times piece. 3 This has been the case in Maryland. According to the Task Force Report on Social Studies Education in Maryland , “Thirty–three percent of the Maryland elementary school principals . . . reported a moderate to great decrease in civics instruction.” 4

Maryland has many high–stakes tests. “This is a huge challenge to civic engagement and civic literacy,” said a Summit participant. “It creates pressure that keeps teachers from creating learning opportunities which really engage the youth.”

The top three avenues for volunteering in Maryland are religious organizations (31.5% reported this as the type of organization with which they spent the most time volunteering); children's or educational organizations (22.8%); and other social or community service organizations (13.4%). Community–conversation participants afrmed this in their own reections: “A lot of our community service tends to be religiously afliated or for school,” said one conversation participant. “In my church – there's a school across the street, and we tutor kids in the afternoon,” added another.

According to the Federal government's chief public resource on volunteering, volunteeringinamerica.gov , an estimated average of 1.3 million adult residents volunteered in Maryland between 2007 and 2009.

Maryland ranks 26th in the share of people who reported working with neighbors to solve community problems in 2009, with a rate of 9.2%. Nationwide, 8.8% of Americans age 16 and older report working with neighbors to improve the community in the past 12 months.

The data from Maryland suggest that the rates of people who work with their neighbors have been increasing, which mirrors a national trend.

Women are more likely than men to take part in service as a volunteer. One third (33.0%) of Maryland women are volunteers, compared with one quarter (25.3%) of men.

The intuitive sense that once someone begins volunteering, they nd it worthwhile and tend to repeat the behavior holds true in Maryland. Of those who volunteered in 2009, 73.0% said they had volunteered in 2008 as well. More than half of Maryland's volunteering community (52.4%) are regular volunteers, saying that they spend 12 or more weeks in the year volunteering.

Giving time not only helps the community and fosters a sense of personal efcacy — but it also may have a direct financial benet to community organizations. Of those Marylanders who volunteered in the previous 12 months, 52.7% reported that they had also made a donation of $25 or more.

Women are more likely than men to report that they had given $25 or more: 56.5% compared with 48.6% of Maryland men.

From the Civic Literacy Summit:
Participants, mostly educators, at the Civic Literacy Summit focused strongly on Maryland's service–learning programs and culture. As the first and only state to require service–learning as a condition of high school graduation, Maryland can be justiably proud of its leadership in this area. However, participants recognized that there is progress still to be made in this area, as the state's mid–range ranking makes clear.

As one community–conversation participant said, somewhat pessimistically: “It's like anything else. If you don't have it in school, you don't get it. Families won't teach it.”

While this view may not be accurate in every respect, Summit participants felt a key leverage point in fostering greater service in Maryland is the school system. The Summit workgroup that focused on this issue made recommendations that specically sought to improve service–learning programs, and also integrate it beyond schools and classrooms:

• Greater emphasis on creating a culture in which civic education and service is incorporated from the early grades through higher education

• Emphasis on quality of service, student ownership of projects, increased reection, and demonstrated learning

• Increase funding and support for service–learning programs