The Mercy Academy has been committed to service since the day the doors opened in Louisville, Kentucky. “Empowering students to be responsible leaders in service to others” is proudly stated in the founding mission. Even more, the Academy’s creed reiterates an education developing graduates “able to lead and willing to serve.”
With this commitment to service, it is easy to understand how just 450 students have logged over 45,000 service hours since joining MobileServe. Way to go Mercy!
Rick Blackwell - Service Learning and Leadership Coordinator- takes us back three years to entrusting MobileServe with such an important aspect of their curriculum. “We used a system built for education, but it was clunky. The real issue is that the students were always complaining the solutions wasn’t up or wasn’t working properly. The students hated it so much they wanted to go back to pen and paper,” says Blackwell.
Using estimates from others in the MobileServe family, a return to pen and paper for 450 students could add four to five hours a week of record keeping and updating students on their current status. Time that would be taken from the classroom or other student services.
Worse yet, it is easy to see the impact a clunky system can have on morale. A cumbersome system – pen and paper or an unreliable digital solution – can undoubtedly discourage additional service hours. “The administrators wanted to find a solution that worked,” says Blackwell.
“It is night and day between x2Vol and MobileServe. Administrators and students alike will tell you how easy it is to use MobileServe,” says Blackwell.
Best of all, morale has returned. Students began to blog about their community engagement which drove others to get involved. “The students love it because it is simple and easy to use on their phone.” Blackwell goes on to note how nice it is “to be able to let student know where they are in real time.”
In three years since joining the family, students at Mercy Academy have logged more than 45,000 service hours with an estimated economic value of over $1 million. An impact that truly graduates students embracing the creed “able to lead and willing to serve.”
MobileServe is committed to making volunteer hour tracking and verification simple. As a fully credentialed B-Corp, MobileServe strives to remove the challenges of volunteer management to help those who are building our communities. Please visit www.MobileServe.com to learn more about the 1,000,000+ service hours tracked by hundreds of organizations in the MobileServe family.
