How do I find introductory / practice projects for video editing

I am thinking of going to school for video editing but I want to experience it before I dedicate that much effort and money into it, and would appreciate any video editing projects.

I probably wont finish any project with professional standards but I do have a little experience and would still love to give anything a shot. I have made a couple of video game montages and other small youtube projects.

If anyone has a project or knows somewhere to find free and open projects for someone to take part in, I would appreciate all comments, thanks.

Community churches are a great bet. When I started ramping up my freelance work again I wanted to add a few recent items to my portfolio, so I approached a church in my neighborhood and offered to do a small job or two for free. Come to find out they had video footage from a youth picnic they had no idea what they wanted to do with, so I offered doing a simple video for their web page which only took a couple of hours to put together. Turns out one of the church members who worked for a ski resort needed a "quick video" just like that one and was a paying project:-)