My Service Learning Partner

I am partnering up with Baker Donora Center for my service learning project. The center is conveniently located on the corner of Baker St. and Donora St., one block west of Pennsylvania Ave. The mission of the center is, "improving the quality of life in our neighborhood". They partner with public and private sectors, as well as community residents, to improve the quality of the neighborhood. They are also involved in a Health Outreach to inform and help residents with many resources, such as: Plan First, Quit Smoking, Child Immunizations, Food Resources, My Child, Parenting Resources, Homeownership, and several others. The center also provides and "Extreme Street Makeover" every year, in which they improve the curb appeal of several homes along a particular street.

Baker Donora has asked me to provide them with their next newsletter. Their newsletter typically covers the months activities and services; however, the upcoming months have several important events planned. Therefore, they would like to cover the next couple of months in one newsletter. This will create a good challenge, but I am always willing to tackle a challenge. My partners plan to aid me in anyway and provide me with as much information as possible. This will be a promising experience and can't wait to get started.

Effective Page Design

Effective page design is so important because you want others develop an interest in your document. Documents that are too cluttered and overload on information may quickly loose the interest of their readers. On the other hand documents with too little information may not clearly promote the message you are trying to pass on. You want to disregard any irrelevant information and highlight the important information for a clear message. It must be usable, meaning the content and design should be relevant to your audience and easy for the reader to understand and follow.

An effective page design will have an eye catcher that will draw the individuals attention from across the room to spark an interest. A catchy phrase or picture that relates to your message is a good way to gain this interest. Throughout the document you must keep you target audience in mind to make a connection and keep them reading. A good layout will allow your readers to go with the flow of the document and maintain interest. White space, bold letters and italics will help highlight the key information, but be careful not to use to many variations of font styles because it can be hard on the readers eyes.

Overall an effective page design will help keep the readers interest and develop a clear message. It may be short and simple, however it will be attractive, get straight to the point and keep your readers from guessing what the document intends to say. The primary goal is communication and the audience should always be kept in mind.

Initial Understanding of Service Learning

Service learning and community service are very similar, however there is a difference. The most distinctive difference is that community service emphasises on skills and habits of volunteering, where as service learning allows the student to apply their knowledge and skills developed in school to some real world problems.

Service learning allows the student to be in control of their own project. The project allows the student to reach beyond their comfort levels, learn responsibility, and benefit the community. The student can put their own personal touches on the project and gain a certain satisfaction of learning while helping those in need.

This project will allow me to meet many new people, develope personal growth and responsibiliy. Knowing the the time and effort I put into my project will help those in need will provide me with a great sense of satisfaction.

Strategies for Effective Communication

Accounting has been said to be the language of business. Let's face it, the main goal for any business is to establish an effective, smooth running operation, reduce expenses and gain a profit. Accountants do just that, they are the heart and sole of achieving these specific goals. There are many specific tasks accountants specialize in, however their main purpose in an organization is to manage money made and spent, develop budgets and communicate the financial status of a company.

As an accountant I would understand that much of the work I performed would have little meaning to others, however the results of my finding would greatly effect other employees. I would need to clearly state budgets to each department manager so they will understand their spending limit, desired output levels and the importance of their performances meeting these goals for a promising financial outcome. Furthermore, explaination of these budgets help managers inform their workers and set standards for perfomance. And of course the owner(s) of the company would like to know how their company is doing financially, where the weaknesses and strengths are and what corrective action may be needed.

My communication is also important to individuals outside the company as well. The financial statments should be thorough and up to date. When applying for a loan or purchasing supplies on credit, the creditors have the right to know how well the company will be able to perform and pay back debts in a reasonable time. The statments also enable individuals to determine whether or not they would like to purchase stock from my particular corporation.

Clearly stating the perfomances and financial status of my company is very important to users inside and outside the company. The better I explain the terms and process of my work, the better others will be able effectively use this information for the success of the company.