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"Learning by Doing"
The Program at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) has been in operation for approximately eleven years. In those eleven years students have given over 57,000 hours in community service back to the local El Paso Community. The Wesley Foundation United Campus Ministry administers the PRAXIS Program. Since 1996, the PRAXIS Program has served as liason between the faculty, students and community service agencies. This semester we have 70 agencies in which they are located in UTEP campus, at Fort Bliss, at Juarez, Mexico and all around El Paso.
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The Students must give at least 20 hours of service for the semester and attend to one reflection period where we talk about how volunteerism is affecting them mentally, spiritually and socially. Students average around 35 hours of community service per semester. Since the programs inception, several students have not only become volunteers but also permanent employees.
The students really enjoy the experience and approximately 32% of them stay in a volunteer placement. This means that the El Paso local community now has more than 400 volunteers they did not have five years ago. Also, that means that many clinics. shelters, orphanages, rehabilitation centers, schools, museums, and parks now can keep their doors open to the public including low income residents in need of those services. Lastly, we are currently adding more agencies in Juarez, Mexico to complement the need for all students to be active in their own local communities. This will allow students who live in Juarez, Mexico to volunteer at home.
 Ivolunteer 
Praxis is now working hand and hand with the Ivolunteer National Program in order to further reward students that achieve certain service milestones through community service in a year. Ivolunteer is a program that enables an individual to gain national recognition for his/her community service making them eligible to receive the President's Volunteer Service Award given by the national President's Council on Service and Civic Participation. To learn more about the Ivolunteer National Program visit www.presidentialserviceawards.gov.
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