SHINE anniversary: A Service-Learning road show

by Candice Sakuda

SHINE is 10 years old! Without fanfare, the tutorial keeps doing what it does best – bringing together college students and immigrants for a two-way learning exchange. This 10th anniversary marks a year of sharing our model locally, nationally and internationally.

In January, we kicked off the new year by educating Punahou high school juniors about the immigrant communities in Hawaii and about our SHINE tutorial. The students then developed posters to recruit volunteers for the program, and teacher John Cheever helped to secure a Weinberg “Educating the Heart” grant, which has been key in supporting our efforts.

For Chaminade’s Service-Learning Day in February, Kehau Yamaguchi, our 2005 “star volunteer,” prepared a display that sparked conversation about the opportunity for students to get involved. Meanwhile, student coordinator Celia Pang was learning about service and leadership in a new business course on non-profit management. She presented SHINE and its model of student leadership at the Statewide Service-Learning Conference in March.

Then, in April, we took an expanded version of the presentation to Washington. In the Continuums of Service Conference that took place in Bellevue, our session engaged students and faculty from all over the nation. On the way to Washington, Wayne Tanna, Richard Kido and I highlighted SHINE in part of a presentation for the WASC Conference in Irvine, California. Faculty and administrators requested use of the materials they presented, hoping to implement our model in their own communities.

Back at home, our reflective articles on the experiences appeared in the Network of Volunteer Leaders’ newsletter and the Chaminade Quarterly magazine. The service-learning infrastructure that was central to Kido, Tanna and my WASC presentation became the highlight of our application for the President’s National Service Honor Roll. We were chosen as finalists for the Excellence in Service award, from over 500 other institutions applying!

Bryan Man kept the momentum of the tutorial going strong, helping to train new tutors, driving a van to shuttle them to Kukui Gardens, and even tutoring the Chinese elders. He took a break to present SHINE to people from all over the world, at the International Service-Learning Research Conference in Portland, Oregon, in October.

Thanks to all our partners – Kukui Gardens, Sui Wah School, the Filipino Community Center, UH-Manoa, Chaminade University, KCC, Michigan State, Punahou School, the Weinberg Foundation and each of our wonderfully dedicated student coordinators. Through all of us working collaboratively, the tutorial program has made a lasting impression on the service-learning scene at our colleges and universities all over the nation, as well as on the immigrant community here at home. Here’s to 10 more years!