Month: April 2018

Kindergartners at St. Clement started their service-learning project by brainstorming how to be a kind citizen.  They gathered ideas such as giving flowers, being nice, not fighting, giving a hug, sending a card, and drawing someone a picture. They decided they wanted to draw pictures to show their friends a random act of kindness.  This sparked the idea to send a letter to each class in the school to surprise them and brighten their day. Each morning the students came together as a class to write a short note and draw a picture to be delivered to a grade in the school. Students also created a Kindness Tree where the entire school could post additional ways to be kind to others.

Students learned that relationships depend on love, respect and caring for the feelings and needs of others. They learned that a small act of kindness can go a long way.  The other students at St. Clement started saying hello to the kindergartners in the hall.

The students hoped to inspire others to be kind and spread kindness.  The idea that one small act can reach out beyond ourselves to bring joy and happiness to those in their school community.

To reflect, students sat around the Kindness Tree and read all of the new hearts that had been added since they started.  They discussed ways to be kind that were similar to the ones we thought of originally and looked at new ways to be kind that other students in the school shared.

Want more ways to perform random acts of kindness, visit: https://www.randomactsofkindness.org/

7th Graders at Conner Middle School staged a Night of Jazz to benefit the Henry Hosea House and their programs for the homeless. They received help from Randell Bertsche from UC’s College Conservatory of Music and The Four + Brass Band and the Skyline Chili in Hebron.

ConnerMiddleNightOJazz from Steve Oldfield on Vimeo.

Fourth and fifth-grade students at St. Clement worked together to educate the student body, plan and run a fundraiser to adopt a sea turtle.  Students made connections to this project in their science, social studies, math, language arts and religion classes.

Through their project, students learned map reading skills, about turtle habitats, how to write informational text and money math skills.  At the end of the project, students reflected in religion class on how they became better stewards of the environment.

Students made many connections to their project across all areas of study:

• Through science class, students learned about the various marine species, noting the delicate balance of the ecosystem. This led students to better understand just how life-threatening pollution is to marine life.  Students learned how plastic bags look like jellyfish, which is the main food source for sea turtles.  The plastic bags are mistaken for jellyfish, and when the turtles consume the plastic bags, the sea turtles often die.
• Though social studies, students tracked the migration patterns of sea turtles across the Atlantic Ocean.
• Through math class, students applied their money math skills by setting a goal and then determining how much per person was needed to be collected for the purchase of an out of uniform pass to reach that goal.
• Through language arts, students wrote a script to inform the school about their project as well as creating school announcements, posters and flyers.

Through their efforts, students raised $265 to adopt a sea turtle from Seaturtle.org.  This organization works to track, protect, and preserve nesting lands of the various sea turtle species by installing tracking devices on the back of the sea turtles.

Deer Park High School’s Senior Serve – Local12 from Steve Oldfield on Vimeo.

While the underclassmen were stuck taking state standardized tests, seniors at Deer Park High School outside Cincinnati spent the week engaged in helping more than a dozen non-profits in our area. We are grateful to Local12 for telling the story. This video was produced by the Service Learning Network, a project of Children, Inc’s Service Learning team.

 

Be Concerned is a privately funded food pantry located in Covington, Kentucky. It was established in 1968 as a Christmas store and became a food pantry year-round in 1987. Their mission is to honor the dignity and humanity of all persons. Be Concerned does this by providing choices to their customers through what Andrew Brunsman, Executive Director of Be Concerned, says this is part of the dignity model Be Concerned promotes.

Be Concerned provides eighty pounds of food to approximately 615 families a month who live in Boone, Campbell, or Kenton County. Additionally, Be Concerned provides senior home deliveries to 90 seniors at four sites, as well as fifteen seniors who are homebound. They also have started what Brunsman calls “the weekend project”, which provides 800 meals a month for low income children who do not get to eat over the weekend at John G. Carlisle and Latonia Elementary. Be Concerned also recently started the college student food securement at Mount St. Joseph University. Brunsman delivered 34 grocery boxes during their third delivery. Be Concerned also has a thrift store, called Betty’s Treasures, at their site that anyone can shop at that provides other essentials like clothes and other items for a home.

“It comes down to volunteers. We’ve learned here that the food will always show up. You can ask people for food and they’ll get it, but people don’t always have time. What we could use the most are consistent volunteers for any length of time,” said Andrew Brunsman, Executive Director of Be Concerned. As they grow their programs, they need more help. Be Concerned uses Signup genius on their Facebook page for volunteers to sign up. Brunsman also wishes they had a better digital presence to let the community know what new things were going on at Be Concerned. Additionally, with the weekend project, variety with the meals is important so they need more microwavable individual cups with protein.

Patricia Weber, a regular volunteer at Be Concerned said, “The best part about volunteering at Be Concerned is the smiles and the gratitude you see on their faces and just to see how grateful they are.

“I’m most proud of the legacy that Be Concerned has left in the community of people caring and sharing. I’m proud of them to think of how many Northern Kentuckians our volunteers have fed over the years. I’m really proud of our reputation in the community for helping people and doing it on a mostly volunteer basis,” said Brunsman.

To learn more about Be Concerned, visit their website at beconcerned.org or visit their Facebook page Be Concerned.

by Guest Blogger:

Julia Justice Hall is a sophomore at Thomas More College majoring in Communications. She is originally from Georgetown, Kentucky.

Goodridge ElementaryAfrica Final from Steve Oldfield on Vimeo.

The third graders at Goodridge Elementary School learned and participated in African art, dances, games, songs, and words, along with learning about the continent of Africa and the country of Kenya. Students learned about the scarcity of water throughout the world, but primarily in Kenya and hosted an Art and Talent Show to benefit a non-profit in Nairobi, Kenya.

AdamGuard from Steve Oldfield on Vimeo.

Adam Guard is the captain of the Thomas More football team and a motivational speaker based in Covington, KY.

The Northern Kentucky Youth Advisory Board brings together some of the top student leaders from more than a dozen high schools to engage and learn from each other. It empowers them to be agents of change in their schools and communities.

For more information, visit: https://nkyab.weebly.com/ 

 

First grade students at St. Clement collected items to donate to SAAP (Stray Animals Adoption Program) to help stray pets. They graphed the number of items each week on a hundreds chart, as well as on a large graph in the hallway. In math, students are currently learning about “one more, one less,” what number comes after, ones, tens, etc. Counting and graphing our collected items helped students practice the first grade standard “counting to 120 starting at any number less than 120.”

Students also baked dog biscuits and gave them to dogs we knew. When the students baked dog biscuits they learned about measurement as they followed the recipe, measuring out flour, salt, and water.

The students learned there are always people or animals in need of help. They learned you can do something for your community without getting anything in return and how good it can feel to do something for others.

SAAP was very grateful for the 182 items we collected for them. Student input was incorporated into the list of items to collect that they created. They also collectively came up with a goal to reach, which was 100 items. The students reflected in their journal about what they learned from this service learning project.

Fifth Grade Teacher Bob Runyan has created a dynamic outdoor classroom – a garden that’s teaching the kids all kinds of life and work skills.

Learn even more about  the Latonia Elementary Herbmania and Urban Garden here: facebook.com/Latonia-Elementary-Herbmania-and-Urban-Garden

Latonia Elementary Garden from Steve Oldfield on Vimeo.