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Introducing Lead-ND //

LEAD-ND is a network of volunteers at the University of Notre Dame working to curb educational inequity by facilitating a weekly after-school program for nontraditional youth leaders throughout the City of South Bend.  Our students participate in leadership development activities that include cooperative games, simulations, off-site experiential learning opportunities, and more.  Youth are challenged throughout the year to define and map community needs and assets and to create a community action project that will address those needs.  By supporting traditionally under-resourced and under-estimated young people in a positive environment, we work to empower a new generation of community change agents to create sustainable improvements that matter to them throughout the city.

Mission //

In a collaborative movement to empower our community’s most overlooked and underestimated young people, LEAD-ND is a corps of student leaders committed to engaging youth in interactive leadership development programs and community action projects.  Our mission is to provide equitable after-school opportunities for South Bend youth to learn the value of community service and active citizenship.  We work to accomplish this by empowering the voices of traditionally under-resourced young people through engaging, service-based leadership development programming that draws upon both the rich diversity of our community and the creativity of all people who are called to action through leadership.

Vision //

One day, all youth will have access to the resources necessary to make change in their communities.  Solutions are in the voices and actions of young people; each deserves to be heard and have his or her chance to make an impact.  Any child who wants to be a leader in the name of service will be empowered to do so.

Values //

  • Service to Others

  • Formative Experiential Learning Activities

  • Nontraditional or Unconventional Leadership

  • Systemic Change

  • Building Relationships

  • Diversity

History //

Founded in March 2004, LEAD-ND has grown into an innovative and energized youth outreach organization over the course of the past year.  Immediately following its inception, our program developed as a collaborative effort of undergraduate students committed to improving the position of under-resourced young people in local schools and communities.

Throughout the summer and fall of 2004, LEAD-ND designed a unique leadership development and service-learning curriculum, recruited its first host school, and inaugurated its first Volunteer Corps.  Beginning in January 2005, this Corps entered Jefferson Intermediate Center and has since engaged 35 youth in after-school programming that includes interactive leadership simulations, RAP group discussions, and off-site fieldtrips focused on applied learning.

LEAD-ND maintains its original program structure and goals and has expanded into the local intermediate centers of Brown, Navarre, and Marshall. For the first time in 2008-2009 it will facilitate leadership development at Clay Intermediate Center.

LEAD-ND has a strong commitment to community and to service, including interactive learning with the South Bend mayor and participation in National and Global Youth Service Day, a program of Youth Service America. Lead-ND participants have been featured on FOX-28 News, were the subject of a story on nontraditional leadership in the South Bend Tribune, and aired public service announcements on 99.1 FM WSMK.

With our students' growing leadership, the Lead-ND circle continues to broaden each year. Past student-led service projects include everything from preparing bag lunches and care packages for residents at the Center for the Homeless to painting murals at schools to interacting with residents of a local nursing home.