Encounter
Move beyond assumptions by meeting people face to face and listening before arriving at conclusions.
Atlanta · Community engagement · Since 1997
Service is where leadership gets real.
For nearly three decades, I have served at St. Francis Kitchen in Atlanta and invited college students to learn what no lecture can teach by itself: leadership begins with presence, attention, and responsibility to other people.
A sustained practice
Showing up is part of the lesson.
I began volunteering at St. Francis Kitchen in 1997. The work is concrete: preparing a shared space, organizing food and supplies, serving neighbors experiencing homelessness, and making room for conversation. Consistency matters. A single Saturday can be meaningful; returning changes the relationship.
I first brought students as an extra-credit assignment. The idea grew into a service-learning practice that now brings Oprah Winfrey Scholars to the kitchen two Saturdays each month. Students serve alongside community members, consider the causes and consequences of homelessness, and examine what responsible leadership asks of them.
Service-learning in practice
Encounter. Reflection. Return.
Reflection
Connect experience to questions of dignity, inequality, community, and personal responsibility.
Servant leadership
Work with care and consistency, especially when nobody is waiting to applaud. The spotlight can take the morning off.
From the archive
Education travels beyond campus.
Service-learning asks students to connect experience with study, then carry that reflection back into their classrooms and public lives.
Service begins with showing up.
Return to scholarship and teaching →