Two-year schools serve a high population of traditionally marginalized students, including students of color, first-generation college students, older students, and students from low socioeconomic backgrounds (Ma & Baum, 2016). Historically, two-year schools have been organized around vocational programs and blue-collar work, leading to a differentiation in curriculum and the way education is carried out (Rose, 2014; Shor, 1980). Service-learning, a type of pedagogy that involves students participating in community projects as a part of their coursework, has become increasingly popular in two-year schools since the 1990s (Weglarz & Seybert, 2004), and two-year schools are often interested in the vocational possibilities and the prospect of increasing student engagement (Vaknin & Bresciani, 2013). This ethnographic study of a learning community at South Community College was conducted over the course of ten weeks in the fall of 2018. The learning community students completed a service-learning project as a required component of their coursework for the two learning community courses. With the absence of a cycle of reflection or a social justice framework for the class, the pedagogy observed was not really critical service-learning or service-learning at all. Though some of the student participants felt positive about the outcomes of the class project, opportunities for liberatory pedagogical practices and movement toward more equity in gateway courses may have been lost. This research suggests that more faculty development and learning on critical service-learning is crucial to the successful implementation of such projects.