Lebanon County Youth Advocate and Lebanon Valley College recently partnered together for Senior Seminar.  This collaboration pairs sociology and criminal justice majors with YAP staff and youth for a semester long project. This is the fourth year that YAP has partnered with Sharon Arnold, Chair of LVC’s Sociology and Criminal Justice department, and her students. The collaboration successfully gives college students real world experience working with youth and offers a glimpse at college life for YAP youth, as well as builds their social capital.

This year’s project was Be Kind. LVC students and YAP staff and youth were placed into 8 teams who met weekly to explore what it means to Be Kind and how an act of kindness can make others feel. Teams then developed individual projects to spread kindness in the community with the goal that their projects would live on and continue after the collaborative project ended. The project culminated in a gala where teams introduced their completed projects to over a hundred people, including youth parents and community leaders.