Stand Up! Speak Out! Lend a Hand!

Carrollton High School (Carrollton, Michigan)

2008-03-04T12:50:00.001-08:00

The students of Carrollton High School decided to focus on the topic of Hunger. The students chose to organize and host an Empty Bowls Dinner.

The class invited the art classes of Mrs. Wesley to make the bowls for the dinner. They also decided to donate monies raised to Hidden Harvest as they, seemingly, will have the most impact on the community.

At an Empty Bowls Dinner everyone is served a soup in a ceramic bowl along with a piece of bread. This is served to bring attention to the fact that many individuals throughout the world have no more than this to eat in a day's time. The purpose of holding the Hunger Expo in conjunction with the dinner is to build awareness of hunger issues and solutions to those issues that exist in the Saginaw area. The documentary "One Survivor Remembers" willalso be shown.

Wednesday, April 2 falls at the midpoint of Celebrate Carrollton Week and was chosen as the date for the dinner. This date was chosen for several reasons. First, our heritage as a community was deeply set in the culture of Eastern Europe. There is also a Holocaust survivor that has been a longtime resident of Carrollton. Second, it is a great time to showcase the ability of our students to take an interest and take a stand to better the community they live in and make a positive impact in the lives of others.

Tulpehocken Area School District (Bernville, Pennsylvania)

2008-03-04T12:36:00.000-08:00

The Tulpehocken Area School District in Bernville, PA is lending a hand to needy families in the district. Students are coordinating a canned food drive within the junior-senior high school. The students met several times to determine the scope of the service project. They have coordinated everything from the advertising of the event, to the collection, to the distribution of the food. They will be working closely with the guidance office to be sure the donations reach the families in need.

Alexander High School (Laredo, Texas)

2008-03-04T12:33:00.000-08:00

Living on the border presents a variety of cultures and languages. This often leads to division by legal authorities and citizens alike. Our goal is to teach our students to lead our community into an acceptance of differences in faiths, races, languages, and cultures. We began by reading Night in our English I classes, after we watched the Gerda Klein video. We wrote poems and researched genocides across the world. The local rabbi spoke to our students about the reasons behind the Holocaust and how intolerance can lead to disaster. Then we invited Rachel Seigel, a 14-year-old author from Dallas who wrote about people who helped the Jews during the Holocaust. After Rachel we participated in the Web Cast with Gerda Klein. On December 5 we hosted two Holocaust survivors, Anna Rado and Rose Williams. The San Antonio Holocaust Center brought them to Laredo for us and we Web Streamed their two presentations throughout the district. In order to get a ticket to see them live, students and adults were asked to bring four items of food. We collected almost 10,000 items which were distributed to needy students, custodians and the South Texas Food Bank. The Web Streaming reached more than 10,000 students, teachers and community members. Our students are writing to people concerning their involvement in the Holocaust and the reason behind their involvement. Because of the problem with intolerance on campus, we have begun creating a Tolerance Zone with plaques, seating and plants. The cement will have the logo one of our students created, along with butterflies (representing innocent victims of genocides and intolerance) painted on the cement. Around the edge will be handprints of everyone who pledges to be tolerant of others. Each handprint will include the name and cost $5.00, which goes toward a Tolerance Scholarship we have begun. We have raised $1500.00 so far and expect to award scholarships totaling more than $3,000.00 the first year. Community members have donated time, work, and supplies to make this project a success. I also received a $1,000.00 grant from the Association of Texas Professional Educators to build an entrance to the zone. Five history professors are going to have a panel discussion next month concerning intolerance and how it can lead to war and genocide. Some of these professors have lived through genocides in their native countries. The art department is helping create art, the social studies is researching and bringing in speakers, and the English department is compiling writings from our students. Plans include a DVD of the year’s activities, along with a book of writings and illustrations by our students and the people who have visited or written this year. We have a dedication ceremony tentatively planned for April, with proclamations from government officials and guests from across Texas. This project has just begun and we hope to see major changes in the next ten years. Our students are excited about learning and our teachers are excited about teaching once again.

Colonial Middle School (Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania)

2008-03-04T12:29:00.000-08:00

Wanting to make a difference just as Gerda Weissmann-Klein had challenged, the 8^th grade Gifted English classes at Colonial Middle School split into groups and organized different community service projects.

Targeting those who are hungry, their service projects include Peanut Butter and Jam sandwich making- a nutritious way to donate food. A monthly, non-perishable food drive will also take place during February, March and April. The food will be donated to Colonial Neighborhood Council. Creating packed lunches for those who leave the Salvation Army shelter to work or go to school during the day is another on-going project. Lastly, hygiene packs, which include toothpaste, a toothbrush, and other personal care items such as toothbrushes, toothpaste, shampoo, razors, etc., are being assembled to donate to shelters.

We also have a Public Service Announcement on our website. Here is the link:

http://www.colonialsd.org/colonial/lib/colonial/citv/cmsspeakup.swf

Frazier Middle School (Frazier, Pennsylvania)

2008-02-25T11:23:00.000-08:00

The students at Frazier Middle School are preparing a 2 minute documentary on the Food Drive they ran from November 19,2007 to December 14, 2007. The students took pictures during the set up, collection, and distribution of the non-perishable items. They took the pictures and used a computer program to create a DVD that shows the activity. The students had a lot of fun and were very pleased to be able to others in their community during the Holiday Season.

Cooper's Poynt Family School (Camden, New Jersey)

2008-02-25T09:39:00.000-08:00

The students involved in this service project from Mr. Ferber's 8th grade Language Arts Literacy class have chosen to coordinate a fundraiser to raise money for The Cathedral Kitchen, a local soup kitchen, as well as another charity to be chosen. Additionally, we will be "adopting" our pre-school classes and are organizing a "Read Along with Me/ Role Model program. Last, but definitely not least, we would like to open the doors of communication with different schools with diverse student populations for a day of dialogue and understanding. As an inner-city school, we have many questions that we would like to ask students in suburban schools. We are sure that students in suburban schools have many questions about growing up in the inner-city. A "Get to Know Us Day" would open the doors of connection, understanding, tolerance, and acceptance. We could set up this "Diversity Dialogue" through our Distance Learning lab, or by a visit. Interested parties can reach us at dferber@camden.k12.nj.us.

Chariho Regional High School (Wood River Junction, Rhode Island)

2008-02-25T09:33:00.001-08:00

Chariho Helps End Hunger in the Community

The students in the Chariho Community Service Program are working to help end hunger in their community. They will run a canned goods drive in November and December 2007 and deliver the items to the St. Mary’s St. James’ Community Food Pantry. At the food pantry, they will learn about hunger and food pantries in the state of Rhode Island. The students will also volunteer to work in the food pantry by stocking shelves. The students will also create a lesson appropriate for 3^rd and 4^th graders and teach it to students in the elementary schools in our district.

Swan Valley High School (Saginaw, Michigan)

2008-02-25T09:30:00.001-08:00

Swan Valley High School students in Saginaw, Michigan took on several different projects - the largest one is a fundraising project to help tear down a condemned house that a disabled couple live in and build them a new one. We're working with a local church, and have managed to get some local contractors involved who will work for almost nothing. We are almost within our reach with the project, and the demolition should start soon. Students held bake sales and bottle drives, held exhibition games, and got the word out to the community to help - which resulted in local contractors lending a hand. We've also been working with the American Red Cross - raising money for disaster relief.

North Kingstown High School (Kingstown, Rhode Island)

2008-02-12T10:29:00.000-08:00

Rhody Care for Veterans and Overseas Soldiers!

In December, we decorated cookies and held a Christmas card drive throughout our community to collect cards to send to our veterans home in Bristol RI. We also put donation boxes around local communities to collect items to help us create care packages to send to Baghdad. Altogether our shopping and donation boxes helped to pack ten large boxes! They are currently on a plane to Baghdad!

Schuylkill Intermediate Unit 29 (Mar Lin, Pennsylvania)

2008-02-12T07:01:00.000-08:00

The IU Center's theme revolves around our Wellness Program that has been incorporated this year. Our students will be busy collecting healthy snacks to distribute to those in need at our local food pantries, etc. A letter will be sent home to the parents asking for healthy donations for our cause. The students will make banners, flyers and posters to introduce our campaign within the school. The students will then collect and distribute the healthy snacks to the local food pantries.

Schuylkill Technology Centers (Mar Lin and Frackville, Pennsylvania)

2008-02-12T07:00:00.000-08:00

Our Project will be called "Bullying--- It Takes 3"

In order for bullying to occur you need three people: The bully, the victim, and the bystander. Many kids are bystanders and they need to understand that they can affect positive change by learning how and when to speak up.

STC students will be sponsoring an Anti-Bullying Awareness Day in both buildings. We will be challenging each shop to create a banner that can teach about some aspect of the bullying problem, as they see it. We will then have a contest for the best banner and have each shop present their banner to the entire school community. Having 12 districts that feed our vocational/technical school challenges our students to rise above their differences and celebrate their commonalities. We will use this project to build unity in our community as well as raise awareness about the issue of bullying and how it affects us all.

Flagstaff Middle School (Flagstaff, Arizona)

2008-02-11T13:01:00.000-08:00

Flagstaff Middle School Team 8-3 has decided to "adopt" our local family resource center. The FRC offers tutoring services, computer access, and parenting workshops to the community. They recently requested warm clothing items and toiletry items for needy families. Our class held a clothing drive to support the center. We will continue to work with the FRC to volunteer, collect needed items, and raise funds.

Bala Cynwyd Middle School (Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania)

2008-02-11T13:00:00.000-08:00

After thorough consideration of many social issues that are important to us, the eighth grade students from Bala Cynwyd Middle School have elected to work toward understanding the causes of and the circumstances around homelessness. We hope to raise awareness in our school about the issue and we are organizing a drive to benefit an organization in our area that is working to break the cycle of homelessness.

Plymouth-Whitemarsh High School (Plymouth Meeting, PA)

2008-02-11T12:58:00.000-08:00

The Anti-Defamation League's Peer Trainers at Plymouth Whitemarsh High School will work with the cultural groups (Black Cultural Awareness, Asian Awareness, Jewish Cultural Awareness and Gay Straight Alliance) in bringing the Philadelphia based Interact Theater Company to the campus. Thanks to a grant from International Blue Cross, the professional performers will deliever a play that centers on the mingling of different socio-economic groups. It is believed that 160 students and 15 adults will take part in this exciting interactive performance.

Wallace Middle School (Kyle, Texas)

2008-02-11T12:57:00.000-08:00

The NJHS of Wallace Middle School are focusing more on racial relations. We will be co-hosting a Family Cultural night later this month. During this evening we will be encouraging parents and students to bring a dish that is a favorite in their family. We will have the dishes set up potluck style with a recipe card in front of their dish. In addition, the school mariachi band and choir will be performing music from around the world. We will also have games set up from different cultures and double dutch in the gyms. We will also have a slam poetry reader who is also a motivational speaker on racial relations. We hope to have a fun family filled night!

Marian Catholic High School (Allentown, Pennsylvania)

2008-02-11T12:56:00.000-08:00

The freshmen at Marian are going to collect clothes and food for a local fire company. We always have several fires in the area at this time of the year (winter) so we thought it would be nice to help out our local fire departments. If it is too late to submit, that is okay. We are still doing the project the end of this month.

Riverside Junior/Senior High School (Riverside, Pennsylvania)

2008-02-11T12:51:00.000-08:00

We are titling our project “Returning the favor”. The students at Riverside Junior Senior High School, Mrs. Janesko’s 11^th grade history class have chosen to volunteer their time at the Gino Merli Veteran Center. Mrs. Klein touched us with her story about her husband, her hero. We felt that these veterans are sometimes forgotten and without them we would not be able to enjoy all of the freedoms we have today.

Frankfort Middle School (Frankfort, Kentucky)

2008-02-11T12:48:00.000-08:00

The 8^th graders at Frankfort Middle School are organizing a one-day event called “Top the Tent.” We will be setting up tents outside two local grocery stores and asking shoppers to donate canned goods, cleaning products, baby necessities, and personal hygiene products. Our goal is to collect enough of these items that we can stack boxes of them from the ground to the tops of our tents. We will then donate the items we collected to nearby community agencies (such as our school district’s Family Resource Center, the soup kitchen near our school, and the local women’s shelter).

Salisbury Township High School (Allentown, Pennsylvania)

2008-02-11T12:44:00.000-08:00

Life in the Making is an online project designed for students to help them make career pathway choices. On our Wikispaces, students will find information about Career Planning, Financial Planning, Social Networking, Test Preparation and Grades, Vocational Schools, and College. Each of these topics is further divided into sub-categories that help students make informed choices about their future. After participating in an online midterm exam about this project (you can view the midterm at this site: http://changingconnections.blogspot.com/2008/01/life-in-making.html ), they created digital research papers. Their projects can be found at this site: http://life-in-the-making.stsd.wikispaces.net/. Students will be sharing their online writing process and project at a workshop in May for Language Arts teachers in our Intermediate Unit. Because we wanted reach out in person to help others have a Life in the Making, we organized a school team to participate in Walk Now for Autism in April.

Pilgrim High School (Warwick, Rholde Island)

2008-02-11T12:43:00.001-08:00

My students have created a "Do Something Club" in response to the the video conference. They adopted two families over the holidays, providing them with food and gifts. They have organized a "Support the Troops" project sending military and their families needed supplies, formed a Relay for Life team for the Cancer Society, and held a Battle of the Bands with proceeds going to Save Darfur project. The club is being run totally by the students, led by Emily O'Donnel and Nicole Boerwinkle.

Delaware Valley High School (Milford, Pennsylvania)

2008-02-11T12:41:00.000-08:00

We could not decide which service-project to focus on this year, so we selected two very important issues. We will be planning, organizing, and executing an Alex's Lemonade Stand throughout our district in the month of April. All proceeds will go to the fight for childhood cancer. Also, we have connected with a group of Marines stationed in Iraq and we will be writing to each member of the unit as well as preparing packages for the troops. We are very excited to begin each project!

Bryan Station High School (Lexington, Kentucky

2008-02-11T12:39:00.000-08:00

Students at Bryan Station High School will each complete 9 hours of Community Service of their choice during the spring semester. For each hour that they work, they must write a minimum of 3 PARAGRAPHS that includes the following:

1. Brief summary of what they did.

2. Brief summary of the organization and their role in the community.

3. Personal response to the experience (how they felt, what they thought, etc.).

4. And most importantly, WHAT THEY LEARNED FROM THE EXPERIENCE AND HOW THEY WILL USE IT IN THE FUTURE.

This semester, students will complete the second half by going out into the community and volunteering their time and energy. In return, the students will be giving themselves to others and receiving the great satisfaction that comes with doing so.

Fairland High School (Proctorville, Ohio)

2008-02-11T12:37:00.000-08:00

Fairland High School students were challenged and motivated to begin an organization entitled "I.M.P.A.C.T.". The purpose of the group is specifically for community service. IMPACT has decided to become involved in the following projects:

1. Contribute to the local food bank throughout the school year

2. Participate and possibly begin a chapter of HugsAcrossAmerica

"Stand Up, Speak Out and Lend a Hand!" has made an impact on our students. :)

* * * * * * *

An Update from Fairland:

Fairland High School students have been busy raising money for their service projects and actually seeing the "benefit" of the HugsAcrossAmerica (children in crisis) campaign. We will send details in a 2 minute video production that chronicles their activities.

Last week, when our students were preparing to provide teddy bears for a group of children who have a parent serving in the Middle East. Things changed...Thursday, February 7th a teacher was stabbed and shot in front of her fifth grade students. (The teacher is recovering in a local hospital...her estranged husband killed himself after the incident) Our FHS students decided to get 17 teddy bears and give them to the 17 students who witnessed this horrible incident. We have since learned that the teddy bears were given to each child during their grief counseling on Monday and the staff, faculty and parents are overwhelmed with gratitude to our students.

Thank you for getting the video conference together which planted the seed (to serve others) in the hearts of our students...and our faculty.

Mahanoy Area School District (Mahanoy City, Pennsylvania)

2008-02-11T12:34:00.000-08:00

The students at Mahanoy Area are going to put together a care package for our students who are in the foster care program. We plan on filling a personalized duffle bag with items these children many need. We are going to fund some of the project by selling hearts to our students and faculty in grades k-12. We will have a simple heart to have a name put on and posted on a wall for a dollar and a more decorative one for $5.

I will send you more information as we get things going. We will be selling the hearts during the month of February. We are still deciding what items to put in the duffle bags. They probably will differ depending on the age of the students. We decided to focus on these students because Gerda missed her family so much and we know these children miss that family connection as well. We also had a speaker at a previous conference who was lured in by white supremacists when he was a young man. He was raised in foster care and said he grew up wanting to belong to something and this group sucked him right in with a sense of family. He later left the group when he had a child born with a cleft palate and the group felt the child should be euthanised.

We are looking forward to our project and hope it goes well.

Ridley High School (Folsom, Pennsylvania)

2008-02-11T12:33:00.000-08:00

Ridley High School’s service project will involve helping the people in Uganda through the Bead for Life program (www.BeadforLife.com). Our students will be selling beautifully handcrafted paper beads (necklaces, bracelets, and earrings) to raise money for this foundation that also sponsors community development projects in health, education, vocational training, affordable housing, and savings programs. Bead for Life’s mission is to create opportunities for women to lift their families out of extreme poverty by connecting people worldwide in a circle of exchange that enriches everyone. In addition to selling the jewelry, our students will also be running a bake sale on a weekly basis to raise money to help the Bead for Life recipients, as well as the needy families in our own Ridley community. Our students are also volunteering as mentors for an elementary school in our district.