Dorothy Day Service Learning Placements
All of the sites for the Dorothy Day Social Justice Living Learning Community were carefully chosen to coincide with your course content for both fall and spring semesters. Please review all site options.
Keep in mind this placement will be for the first semester of the 2012-2013 school year. On-site orientations are MANDATORY, so please only consider sites that fit in to your schedule and orientations you will be able to attend.
Rank your top 4 choices using the form attached to your selection procedure e-mail, and send it to anna.feeley@marquette.edu. Please return the selection placement form with a copy of your class and work schedule.
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AIDS Resource Center of Wisconsin
Address: 820 N. Plankinton
Transportation: You may take any of the following buses going east on Wisconsin Ave.: #10, #12,#14, #23, #30, #51. Get off the bus at Plankinton, walk north on Plankinton to Wells St. Site is located on Plankinton, between Wells and Kilbourn, in the middle of the block. Taking a car would require you to find parking in downtown.
Approximate Travel Time By Car: 2 minutes
Approximate Travel Time By Bus: 5 minutes, then a 5 minute walk north from Wisconsin and Plankinton
Days/Hours of Operation: 3 hour time slot anytime Monday-Friday 9am-5pm
Description of Agency/Activities: The AIDS Resource Center of Wisconsin, Inc. (ARCW) is a private, nonprofit health and social service agency that works to confront and alleviate the effects of HIV disease in Wisconsin. ARCW provides aggressive HIV education and prevention, access to comprehensive services for people affected by HIV disease, clinical research on HIV treatment, and HIV advocacy.
Student Role in Agency: Service learners will assist in the prevention department with the clean needle exchange. This is a program that is aimed to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS through needle usage. Students will prepare starter packs as well as assist in the exchanges of clean needles for dirty ones through Lifepoint Needle Exchange.
Requirements: Students must have a TB test. This can be done at your home doctor, Student Health Services (5$), or at ARCW and a volunteer application must be filled out.
Other: Students will be working in a professional environment, therefore professional behavior is expected. The site depends on the volunteers each week, so students should be on time and ready to go every week.
Website: http://www.arcw.org/
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Benedict Center
Address: 135 W. Wells
Approximate Time By Car: 3 minutes
Approximate Time By Bus: 9 minutes
Days/Hours of Operation: Monday - Friday, 9:00am - 3:00pm
Description of Agency/Activities: Benedict Center offers basic education classes, high school diploma classes, and a variety of support components (Parenting, Job Readiness and Placement, etc.). All of the women involved in the program have at one time in their lives been arrested, usually on a misdemeanor, non-violent charge.
Student Role in Agency: Service Learners tutor women in basic skills or Adult Alternative Learning. Volunteers assist in rendering services for basic skills classes in reading, math, and high school diploma classes. Structure of the classes usually involves individuals working through their own materials. Each woman has her own workbook which introduces each skill necessary. The role of the Service Learners, then, is to be available to explain anything further that may remain unclear from the workbook instruction. For math tutoring, Service Learners should be comfortable with basic math and basic algebra, and have the ability to offer encouragement and guidance.
Unique Features or Challenges of the Agency: Attendance often fluctuates in the classes and new students enter every three weeks, so tutors need to be patient if "their" students are not in class. Efforts will be made to ensure that tutors work with a variety of students.
Commitment/Requirements: Dorothy Day Service Learners are required to attend the agency's orientation (conducted at the agency). Students will be tutoring at the site for 3 hours per week throughout the fall semester.
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Central City Churches
Address: 3022 W. Wisconsin Ave.
Transportation: Take #30 bus west on Wisconsin Ave. Get off at 29th and Wisconsin. The ministry is housed in the basement of Our Saviors Lutheran Church. The entrance is on the west side of the building. If the entrance is locked, enter from the back of the building and go downstairs.
Approximate Travel Time By Car: 3 minutes
Approximate Travel Time By Bus: 5 minutes
Days/Hours of Operation: Food Pantry: Monday-Thursday 8:30am-12pm.
Description of Activities: Central City Churches Outreach Ministry is a neighborhood outreach ministry for the surrounding Milwaukee community. It assists people who are in need of housing, food, employment services, and companionship. Service Learners would need an open mind and an open heart for this placement. The core of this ministry is hospitality, respect, and compassion. It aims to respond faithfully to its neighbors and their emergent needs with direct service, information and referral.
Student Role in Ministry:
Pantry Assistant: Service Learners will assist in the inventory, organization, and distribution of food and necessities to our "neighbors in need."
Website: http://www.oslcmilw.org/CCCOutreachMinistry/tabid/301/Default.aspx
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International Learning Center
Address: Central United Methodist Church, 639 N 25th St
Approximate Travel Time By Car: 3 minutes
Approximate Travel Time By Bus: 5 minutes
Days/Hours of Operation:
- ESL and Reading: Monday-Thursday, 9:00am-11:00am, 12:00-2:00pm, Monday and Wednesday: 5:30-8:00pm
- Math lab: Monday-Thursday, 11:00 am-12:00pm
- Computer lab: Monday -Thursdays, 8:00am-9:00am, 11:00am-12:00pm
Description of Agency/Activities: The purpose of the International Learning Center is to provide English language and communication skills to Southeast Asian and African adult refugees who have had little or no prior education in their own country. Most students function at a 4th grade reading level or lower. A primary goal is to help students regain their self-sufficiency and become contributing members of the community. The curriculum emphasizes practical life skills and job readiness. Students are taught to speak, read, and write at a level required to perform such tasks as filling out job applications, making appointments, finding a job, and attending a parent-teacher conference.
Regular program activities include English classes from entry to Pre-GED levels, helping in the math lab and computer lab, tutoring, bilingual assistance, and family literacy. A preschool for 2 1/2 -5 year olds is provided while adult students are in class.
Whole group instruction is used for English classes. Class size ranges from 15-20. Math lab allows students to work at their own level and pace. Students' skill levels vary from addition and subtraction to pre-algebra. In the computer lab, students learn basic word processing and practice skills using educational software.
Student Role in Agency: Service Learners will tutor a small group or work one-on-one with a student (training pool), as well as assist in a math lab, help adult learners in basic word processing or using educational software, and providing technical assistance for clients using and learning about computers.
Commitment/Requirements: Dorothy Day Service Learners are required to attend the agency's orientation (conducted at the agency). Students will be tutoring at the site for 3 hours per week throughout the fall semester.
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Literacy Services
Address: 555 N. Plankinton Milwaukee, WI 53233
Transportation: Walk or take the bus. Traveling by car would require finding parking in downtown.
By bus: take the westbound #30 or #10 bus on the corner of 16th and Wisconsin to Plankinton and Wisconsin. Walk 1 block south. Literacy Services in on the corner of Michigan and Plankinton.
Approximate Travel Time By Bus: 14 minutes
Approximate Travel Time By Car: 5 minutes
Days/Hours of Operation: Class sessions are scheduled consecutively from 9:00 am – 7:00 pm Monday through Thursday, and 9:00 am – 12:30pm on Friday.
Students must confirm a weekly 90 minute class session with a Literacy Services of Wisconsin staff member before being confirmed as a Service Learner with Literacy Services of Wisconsin.
Description of Agency/Activities: The primary objective is to help adults who want to improve the quality of their lives through literacy education provided by volunteers. Literacy Services is a very well organized agency with a friendly atmosphere. The center offers a condensed training, involving the utilization of materials and progress charts for interested volunteers.
Student Role in Agency: Service Learner will tutor adults, ages 18 and up, implementing English as a Second Language curriculum or Adult Basic Education. Tasks a tutor facilitates include reading, writing, vocabulary, conversation, ESL and computer literacy. ESL Tutors must also attend a basic ESL training, which lasts two hours, before they can begin tutoring. Service Learners might not have the same student every time but the experiences have been overwhelmingly positive.
Student volunteers have the opportunity to learn a great deal educationally and personally with others from different educational backgrounds.
Requirements: Paper work may be required during orientation
Website: http://www.literacyservices.org/
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Milwaukee Secure Detention Facility
Address: 1015 N. 10th St. (10th and State)
Transportation: 10th St. to Wells and then to State (Located behind the court house)
Approximate Travel Time by Bus: Within walking distance
Approximate Travel Time by Car: 1 minute
Days/Hours of Operation: 8:45am-11:15am Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays. 12:45pm-3:15pm Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays.
Description of Agency: MSDF is a holding facility for probation/parole violators, operated by the Department of Corrections, Division of Adult Institutions. The mission of the Milwaukee Secure Detention Facility is to provide detention, accountability, and programming to adult male felons in a safe secure institution, while being responsive to all criminal justice stakeholders and the community. This facility, while it is statutorily an adult institution, operates in a similar manner to that of a jail operation. Unlike a Department of Corrections institution, the Milwaukee Secure Detention Facility accepts offenders 24 hours a day, much like a county jail. The facility has an intake booking/objective classification process closely resembling that of a county jail unlike other institutions where all offenders are sent to the Dodge Correctional Institution for Assessment and Evaluation. The Milwaukee Secure Detention Facility has a capacity of 1048 offenders. Of that number 800 beds are secure detention beds for men who have been on supervision in the community and violated conditions of supervision. Other offender groups include those in need of transportation to Dodge Correctional for processing into the State Prison System. There are also 210 additional beds that are part of an AODA inpatient program. The average stay in the general holding cells is 67 days. The average stay in the AODA program is 6 months.
Unique features: Due to the nature of this placement, students will be supervised at all times by the site contact. Prison guards will also be present. At least two service learners will attend at the same time. Students will receive training from the site supervisor at orientation and an additional security training from prison staff. A background check is needed, so make sure to fill out all paperwork as soon as possible so as not to delay the start of your service. Students must dress professionally, no flip flops. When attending the site please remember NO CELL PHONES.
Requirements: A background check must be cleared.
Website: http://www.wi-doc.com/milwaukee_secure_detention_fac.htm
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Repairers of the Breach
Address: 1335 W. Vliet St.
Approximate Travel Time By Bus: 10 minutes
Approximate Travel Time By Car: 5 minutes
Days/Hours of Operation: Thursdays & Fridays, 10am-1pm
Description of Agency/Activities: Repairers of the Breach is a non-profit organization dedicated to making a difference in the lives of homeless and near-homeless people by offering them advocacy, daytime shelter, and resources. Their self-governed daytime Center--run by homeless leaders who are transitioning out of homelessness--is a "living room" to 80-100 homeless each day, including people who live on the streets and other unsheltered homeless, those at risk of becoming homeless, and those in shelters.
Working in cooperation with a number of local organizations, Repairers of the Breach offers its members: free telephone use for job- and home-seeking; a telephone message system for call-backs from employers, etc.; legal services; job services; a safe haven; leadership development; education on health and other areas of interest; literacy education.
Student Role in Agency: Several opportunities are available for Service Learning students including:
- Students can assist with literacy education through the on-site Laubach Literacy Center satellite program. Tutors will work with men and women, assisting with basic literacy and reading improvement skills.
- Students can help with a variety of activities that take place daily at the center, for example students can help with the arts and crafts table, help the people who attend the center with creative writing, or help to lead a singing group. Activities could be varied to fit with students' special talents and abilities.
Unique features or challenges of agency: This is a unique organization which will provide service learners with a close and valuable look at homeless in Milwaukee. The neighborhood is higher-risk than some, but once inside the Center, the leadership team takes great care to ensure safety and order.
Commitment: Dorothy Day Service Learners are required to attend the agency's orientation (conducted at the agency). Students will be service-learning at the site for 3 hours per week throughout the fall semester.
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