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My Story - Caitlin, SPPS

Caitlin Siefkes, Service-Learning VISTA
St. Paul Public Schools, Community Ed.

I learned about STLF through my work as an AmeriCorps VISTA member in the Saint Paul Public Schools Community Education Service-Learning Program.  One of my tasks during my VISTA year was to start a service-learning youth council for high school students in Saint Paul.  I attended a service-learning networking event and heard a presentation by STLF.  My supervisor nudged me and suggested that we think about planning a Pay It Forward Tour for Saint Paul high school students as a kick-off and recruiting event for the youth council.

Because the council needed to be made up of students from several high schools, planning the Tour presented unique challenges for recruiting students and working with the schools.  STLF was there to help me at every stage of the process, from meeting with district staff members to talking to students about the Tour.  As I worked with STLF, my entire program and I were floored by the enthusiasm of the organization and how accommodating they were to our requests, no matter how obscure.

The first Pay It Forward Tour from Saint Paul was made of 33 students from 6 different high schools in the Saint Paul Public School System.  Many of these students signed up for the trip without knowing anyone else; we even had a foreign exchange student from Bahrain.  There was great variation among the students in age, socioeconomic background, and ethnicity.  The students tended to group with kids they knew at the beginning of the trip, but by the second night they had already begun to break down the barriers between them.  As an adult looking in at the group, it was exciting to see them push themselves out of their comfort zones to address issues of stereotyping and how it feels to help others.  The college leadership core did an awesome job of making the students feel comfortable enough to make this progress.    

Another fun part of the trip was watching students as they encountered things for the first time.  A lot of them had not traveled outside of the Twin Cities metro area before and were impressed with the bluffs along the Mississippi River in southern Minnesota.  In Madison, WI, we visited a zoo, which some students had never done before.  It is thanks to the generous financial aid from STLF that many of our students were able to have these experiences. 

The students came back excited about service and inspired to help their communities at home in Saint Paul.  Even before we got off the bus, several students had already asked about the next Pay It Forward Tour.  I hope this is the start of what will be a long tradition of Pay It Forward Tours for high school students in Saint Paul!

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