In Service - 140 students, 80 projects, over 2000 hours

The Teen Action and Support Center (TASC) is a non-profit in Rogers, Arkansas who offers free services to teens and their families. Our largest program, In Service, is a community service learning program that links students in the community with volunteer opportunities. We work with students who need community service for all sorts of reasons, such as college and scholarship applications, court mandated service, reduction of fines, and other club/school requirements such as National Honor Society or Student Council.

So far in 2009, we have seen our greatest increase in students, and have 140 students in our program this year. These students have given back over 2000 hours to the community by assisting in projects at over 26 organizations and agencies. The greatest part about this program is not only does it instill public responsibility and leadership skills within the students, but it also provides opportunities for students to connect to healthy mentoring relationships with adult leaders who supervise the projects.

The Rogers District Court has partnered with our organization in sending all teens who receive traffic violations to our program. Through the court alone, we see 18-20 new students each month, and on top of that another 35-45 are continuing to do community service to pay down fines, saving our community approximately $50,000 a year in fines to the court systems.

Some of our most recent projects include workdays at the Samaritan Community Center packing snack packs for elementary students, clean-up days for the City of Rogers, assisting with the Charity Challenge golf tournament, and working with the Center for Non-profits. TASC is solely funded from community support and receives no federal or state funding. We are so excited to offer this program as a resource for teens who want to give back. Our students are making a huge impact on their community!