Interview with Kathy Havens Payne

ICP intern Katherine Felt was able to speak with Kathy Havens Payne, the Senior Director of Education Leadership at the State Farm® Insurance Companies. State Farm® is an active supporter of service-learning, and has allowed for ICP to expand its work on the Summer of Service initiative. Kathy sits on the Board of Directors for the National Youth Leadership Council, Youth Service America, and the National Service-Learning Partnership. In her conversation with ICP, Kathy spoke about the benefits of service-learning, the need for SOS and the value of the new Resource Center.

Why did State Farm choose to support ICP’s Summer of Service initiative?

State Farm has been a strong supporter of youth service and service-learning for many years and continues to be one. Our main focus is really around how we continue to showcase young people as leaders. We do not believe that the summer is a time off, but rather a time for young people to hone their skills and make a connection back to being involved in meaningful community work throughout the entire year. To us, Summer of Service was a good way for this to be showcased.

How else has State Farm supported service-learning and youth leadership?

Service-learning is the main focus for our Education Support – it is the largest area of our funding. We have four national partners, National Youth Leadership Council, Youth Service America, the National Service-Learning Partnership and Education Commission of the States [ECS] and its National Center for Learning and Citizenship. We support a tremendous amount of programs through all of those organizations. We also have our own Youth Advisory Board, which is comprised of thirty young people between the ages of seventeen and twenty. We give them five million dollars a year, which they then re-grant to service-learning programs across the country. It is our signature in-house program around service-learning, the goal of which is to provide young people not only a leadership opportunity, but also the opportunity to help other young people have the same chance to make a difference through service-learning in their own communities.

We are also very proud to have also worked closely with a number of our community development partners, such as the Local Initiative Support Corporation [LISC] and Habitat for Humanity, to incorporate service-learning into their programs. We are aiming for a holistic view of service-learning as a means by which many people can connect to youth, and see them as leaders in action in their communities. That makes stronger, more educated communities to live in.

How do you believe service-learning affects students and communities?

I think service-learning adds so much value that I could talk about it for years. Service-learning is a means of doing many, many things. Most importantly, it is a way of making learning relevant to youth. In the traditional settings in which most young people are educated, the relevance of what they’re learning in the classroom isn’t always connected back to the real world or how they can apply it in life. Many of us went through situations where we never understood why we would need math or history; through service-learning young people see the connection between what they are learning in the classroom and how they can apply it to make their communities better. It gives them a sense of value that what they have to bring to the table is important to their communities.

It is also a great resource for teachers; they can reach so many of our young people who are disengaged, who are not achieving at the level that they need to be. It’s a tremendous tool for improving student achievement, as well as making young people better citizens, so to me it’s the all-around approach. Give me an issue, and I’ll tell you why service-learning can help solve it. I believe strongly in it, and believe that we should empower young people now, instead of waiting for some magical time for adults to say “young people are now leaders”. I think you have to give them those opportunities early and often.

What do you believe the benefits of an Online Resource Center for Summer of Service will be?

First of all, I think if you want to reach a lot of people you have to be online. The days of pen and paper are rapidly leaving us, and everybody now turns to online resources in order to find the information they need, whether it’s a map to get to their next location or where to buy something. I think particularly during the summer, having an online resource provides people an access that gives them ideas on how young people can be engaged and can give back to their communities – that would be incredibly valuable.

What do you hope to see from ICP’s work on Summer of Service in the future?

I think that Summer of Service needs to be connected on both ends. I have great hopes that we’re going to get to a state in this country where summer is not going to be seen as down-time, but is going to be seen as productive time for all of our youth. In this competitive world we have to get to a system of education that is year-round for our children, and I think that Summer of Service provides an entry point to get people thinking about ways in which they can be actively engaged in their communities. There does not have to be a starting point and an end point, but instead they can get excited and start thinking about how they can carry it over throughout their school year to doing service-learning throughout the year. For example, a young person gets involved in Summer of Service, and then the first day of school they are asking their teacher why they are not doing something more meaningful than just pen and paper tasks and reading out of a book. We have a real possibility of helping to do that, and to jump-start the rest of the school year as a means by which service-learning will continue to grow.

ICP thanks Kathy Havens Payne for the interview and State Farm® for their continued support of Summer of Service.