Seeing Social Problems through the Eye of Community Members: Reflections on Community-Based Service Learning at Moses House

Abstract

College students and researchers sometimes assume when they start a communitypartnership or service-learning project that they have many things to offer to the community butthat perhaps not much will be received in return besides an out-of-classroom learning experienceand course credit. However, what I learned throughout my service-learning experience andcontinued work with Moses House is that community members—in this case, children living in Sulphur Springs, a high-poverty neighborhood in Tampa, Florida—have much more to teachcollege students than what we might at first suppose.