The 2010 Citywide Service Learning Project presentation for the Chicago Dream Center - Manna for Life Pantry was held at Medill Professional Center on December 15, 2010. The cadets of Chicago Public Schools JROTC did an outstanding job in supporting the needy and bringing about the discussion of hunger and its impact on individuals, families, the community and the world to your classrooms.

The purpose of this project was to prepare and execute a Service Learning Project that included the voluntary participation of all Chicago JROTC Programs Battalion Staffs and their cadets in the collection of non-perishable foods to be donated to Food Pantry to run from 22 November 2010 to 14 December 2010. Key tasks included the planning and coordination between JROTC programs and cadet staff, planning sessions at each school, the study assignments of hunger and included a research paper, cooperative workgroups, and individual research on the subject. The collection, accountability and turn-in of food collected. Each school issued a report of total food collected, and the presentation by the City Corps Staff of total collected in pounds of food at a formal ceremony and the After Action Reflection.

This was a three phase operation with phase 1 consisting of requesting approval from the Chief Education Officer (CEO) in order to execute the service learning project as well as distributing the service learning project operations order to all 45 JROTC programs, the coordination and the planning by cooperative work groups in each JROTC class period for completion and collection of materials, writing the plan in a formal document to include the assignment of all volunteer positions and area of interest to all participating cadets, the execution of service learning classes on Hunger by the Senior Military Instructor (SMI) and the preparation and copying of forms needed to execute the project. Phase 2 is the execution phase where all cadet battalion staffs are responsible for the success of this project. Cooperative work groups will be established for each JROTC class period to explore the issue of Hunger in Chicago. Finally phase 3 is the post-execution phase which consisted of the after action review that required the collection of comments.

The end state is all service learning was conducted in a manner that each school had gained a greater understanding of hunger, the impact on communities, and an awareness of resources and strategies that were utilized to address the problem. All JROTC Service Learning Forms were completed; Service Learning Project Credit will be awarded to all JROTC cadets who participated.

The Director was pleased to announce that on the behalf of the City Corps Staff, the Manna for Life Pantry was presented 16,580 pounds of food for their continued investment in reaching out to the needy of the Chicagoland area. These donated items will assist the Pantry Outreach program to assist over 4,000 families in the near future.

Clemente, Dunbar, Lake View, Prosser, Roosevelt and Taft collected over 1,000 pounds for this project.