Tennessee Promise provides two years of tuition-free attendance at a community or technical college in Tennessee to qualifying students. Tennessee Promise is “both a scholarship and mentoring program focused on increasing the number of students that attend college in our state,” according to TNpromise.gov. “It provides students a last-dollar scholarship, meaning the scholarship will cover the cost of tuition and mandatory fees not covered by the Pell grant, the HOPE scholarship, or the Tennessee Student Assistance Award. Students may use the scholarship at any of the state’s 13 community colleges, 27 colleges of applied technology, or the eligible institution offering an associate degrees program.”
Tennessee Promise participants must complete and submit eight hours of community service per term enrolled.
That is where JustServe.org comes in. JustServe.org is a place where students can go to sign up for a service project. JustServe is a website where organization and volunteers come together to do good things for the community for free. JustServe links communities with volunteers and does not discriminate based on race, religion, gender, ethnicity or sexual orientation. It serves as a platform for organizations to post needs and for volunteers to search for places to serve.
JustServe is so popular that local and State governments are using it to promote service. JustServe is even being used to help those affected by Hurricane Michael and Hurricane Florence. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints maintains the website but that is where the affiliation stops. The site is a gift from the church to communities everywhere.
Again, JustServe is free for everyone – including students who want to volunteer in their communities to fulfill the requirements of Tennessee Promise. Tennessee is the first state in the nation to offer high school graduates two years of community or technical college tuition-free.
Students can sign up at http://tnpromise.gov and https://www.justserve.org.