Iowa Western celebrates service efforts

COUNCIL BLUFFS — Iowa Western Community College held its Community Partnerships Appreciation breakfast this week as a way to celebrate and promote student volunteerism.

“We wanted to express our thanks to our community partners who are involved in service learning. Iowa is second in the nation in student volunteerism,” IWCC President Dan Kinney said.

The service learning approach has been around at the school “for years. It meets the mission of the community college,” Corinne Grace, IWCC service learning coordinator, said.

“We encourage it because our students get to know the community and they get to understand how they can make a difference,” Grace said. “We’ve had more than 1,000 students participate in more than 7,000 hours of service to the community in the past year.”

Grace said the recipient of this year’s Student Humanitarian Award is a good example of the way the community partnership works.

Linzi Sharpling went to Haiti after the January earthquake and has been helping out at a Haitian orphanage.

“She changed her major after working in Haiti,” Grace said. “She has been there several times since the earthquake.”

Sharpling will enter the nursing program at IWCC this fall. She is still in Haiti, and her father, Bob Sharpling, accepted the award for her.

“She makes a difference,” Grace said.

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