New Jersey Bonner Leaders Program

In 1999 campus and community leaders came together to discuss and dream about how to address the most compelling needs of our society. What followed was the New Jersey AmeriCorps Bonner Leaders Program (NJABLP), an innovative campus-based program housed at three campuses in central New Jersey. The program is designed to integrate the goal of meeting community needs and of inspiring college students to become committed and engaged citizens.

Similar to the other Bonner Programs, the NJABLP identifies and trains a cohesive team of college and university students from community colleges and four year, large and small, public and private, colleges and universities who serve as reduced-time members at specific community agencies. The New Jersey Program, however, is unique due to the full-time and part-time Bonner Leaders who serve in agencies. These members are recruited directly from the community and serve alongside the teams of student members.

Members serve at soup kitchens, in mentoring programs for children from homeless and low-income families, in after school enrichment programs for at-risk children, at programs of adult education, and by conducting community-based research.

The NJABLP Program Director manages the AmeriCorps grant and serves as the facilitator of the regional coalition of both campus-based corps and community-based agencies. The members are supported by campus directors who facilitate training and development, and the agency supervisor who directly supervises their work and training specific to the agency. This model allows the NJABLP to provide a multi-layered support structure with breadth and depth in training and reflection.

Campus directors meet weekly with their entire corps. To build skills necessary for effective service, directors assess and reflect with each member on their progress, both personally and with their community projects. All corps events bring students and community members together for training sessions and seasons of service projects, creating synergy and increasing collegiality.

The program has three mutually-reinforcing components.

1. providing service and enrichment activities for members;

2. providing programs that help develop a culture of service at institutions of higher learning and infrastructures to engage the larger student body, as well as members of the campus community;

3. providing a trained, skilled, and committed group of members who can assist agencies deliver basic services, build capacity, and initiate and support enrichment activities that these agencies would otherwise not be able to provide.