There was a time when Lynne Mullins' speech/public speaking students recited their speeches to their fellow classmates only. While she feels that speaking before any audience is better than no audience, during spring semester 2002 at the University of Minnesota, Crookston, Mullins wanted to expand her students' horizons. So she hooked up with UMC's Office of Service Learning to develop a project that would test her students' ability to speak to a wide variety of audiences.

Soon, Mullins' students found themselves speaking to residents of the Villa St. Vincent Nursing Home in Crookston. Basically, they stood before the residents in the nursing home's community room and told their elders a little bit about themselves. Then, with the ice broken, they broke into small groups and learned a little bit from the senior citizens about how life used to be.

Kathy Hanson, activities director at the Villa, said visiting with the UMC students made many of the residents' day.

"They were so excited to see the young people, hear their stories, and tell their own stories as well," she said.

The Service Learning project also featured the students speaking to audiences at the opposite end of the age spectrum, in Crookston's elementary schools. Knowing how important visual stimulation is to keeping young audiences interested and engaged, Mullins' students brought with them Adventure Bags supplied by UMC's America Reads program. Each Adventure Bag is full of books, videos and other learning tools all having to do with a specific topic, like the Native Americans, for example.

The project was so successful that Mullins plans to implement it again in the fall of 2002.