Hell yes, this should be duplicated everywhere applicable.
Great idea Iowa
My high school required something like 30 or 40 hours per year of "community service," for you to graduate. I'm not sure what most people did--if they really did service or found some easy way to sign off on crap that they didn't do, but mine was always covered because my Youth Group had already long-established a summer retreat every year, which was sending out student work teams with actual handy people/real contractors leading them, to do neglected repairs on local elderly people's homes. Basically, building or replacing wheelchair ramps, replacing sagging floors, sometimes roofs...basically anything that wasn't a utility we could do. It was pretty awesome. Every year, I think we managed about 30 or so houses serviced (each group could finish 2 or 3 house projects for that week....unless, in some cases, it was either a very large project, or you screwed up something, and had to spend the rest of the week dealing with it, heh).
I always thought this should be a universal thing.