About Our Theme
We started planning the Student Summit by thinking and discussing a theme. We first thought about carpe diem or "seize the day" to emphasize the idea of student empowerment because we believe that so much can be accomplished by students. But carpe diem was too narrow--it can be about individuals working alone--and that is not bad, but it is not what we want to say about service-learning. Then we thought more and thought about how during a service-learning project people address issues and solve problems and they end up transforming their communities in ways that people working alone never could.
Another important part of our theme discussion was about what makes a community extraordinary. We decided that places where people’s differences are celebrated and where they are constantly trying to make things better for everyone (like at Blackstone Academy!!!!) are extraordinary places.
We have all traveled here (USM), from New England's biggest cities to its smallest towns, but as the planners of this Summit our hope for you is that when you get home you will look for ways to continue to: Transform Your Communities from Ordinary to Extraordinary!
 About the Summit Planners and Keynote Speaker |
I loved being able to see other student projects and learning that other students are involved and concerned about issues in their communities .