Loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honor, integrity and personal courage: these are the army values that are instilled in Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (JROTC) cadets.

JROTC is a program that teaches students discipline, leadership and responsibility. Each year, cadets participate in a service learning project where they volunteer around Memphis to demonstrate JROTC’s core values.

“A service learning project basically helps us learn about each other and develop a connection with each other while helping the community,” Catherine Knott-Craig (10) said.

Aside from volunteering, three reflections are done to document the participants’ feelings during the course of the project: a before reflection, which is written to express any preconceived notions, a “during” reflection written directly after volunteering to document the experience and an after reflection. Finally, they make and present a PowerPoint about the project.

“It’s a really big project,” Braylin Holt (11) said. “It goes from quarter one to quarter two, so we started 2-3 weeks before fall break and now we’re actually in the phase where we’re supposed to have our stuff done before the end of the quarter.”

Each group has a leader, who is a LET III (third year JROTC students), and an assistant, who is a LET II (second year JROTC students), who work together to plan and execute the project. Holt is in charge of managing all the enlisted cadets in her company. She is leading her group this year for the service project. Setting up a serving learning project requires good communication and time management skills, which cadets learn in JROTC.

“Leading [the service project] this year is a lot, but I think it’s been a great experience for me because I really like involving myself with people … [and] I enjoy having that connection [between] me and other cadets,” Holt said.

Valery Ferraro (10) is assisting Holt in leading the project. Having an integral role in the project furthers her goal of gaining better leadership skills and staying disciplined in her actions.

“I’m helping her be able to plan exactly where we’re gonna go, what time we’re going to meet up, and just making sure that everyone in our group is getting all of our reflections done and everything,” Ferraro said.

JROTC’s mission statement is “to motivate young people to become better citizens,” and the service learning project has a direct correlation to it, as cadets represent the White Station Army JROTC program and its values when volunteering. Each group is brought together and is connected through shared values and impact on the community.

“You’re building that connection with your community and working on your leadership skills,” Holt said. “It feeds into the ROTC curriculum, and so we learn how to become good leaders, how to plan time, smart goals — all that comes together, and the service learning project is like that period where you can actually show what you’ve learned.”

Knott-Craig joined after a close friend told her how JROTC changed the course of her life. Participating in service learning and other activities helps foster a familial relationship between cadets.

“The second I walked into that classroom, I realized that this is what I want to do and this is what I connect with,” Knott-Craig said. “It started to reshape the way I think about my future, and it started to open up some other career paths. And other than that, it’s helped, honestly, with organization and duty and stuff like that. Through my outside teams, it’s helped me see the better in myself.”