ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that socialists have often accepted Malthusian caricatures of the poor, sniffed dismissively at charity, and offered only radical posturing in the face of ubiquitous hardship. Service learning, which currently suffers from a surfeit of accolades and anecdotes, can create the conditions for positive intergroup contact as specified by Gordon Allport, and thereby reduce the power of negative stereotypes. The chapter advocates involving students in charity, in other words, compassionate acts of helping, an activity that historically has been rejected by many on the left. It then examines Wagner College's Port Richmond Project, which works with a poor immigrant population in New York City. Wagner College created the Port Richmond Partnership in March 2008 to bring together administrators, faculty members and students to collaborate with 23 local schools, churches and nonprofit organizations. Service-learning projects have included after-school programs, tutoring to prepare students for college, health fairs, as well as community art, gardens and theatre.
