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    STUDENTS UINTED/SERVICE LEARNING

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    Who are we and What do we do?

     

    We are not the “new group on campus”. We are not competing with other school groups. United Way has been involved with Sault Area schools for many years but as an adult entity and we are simply the student representation of United Way We call ourselves Students United as a subgroup of United Way. We work with United Way to help build connections between our students and the community. Our goal is simply to help facilitate students’ efforts in and out of school when it comes to community service, volunteerism and functions to increase school pride.

     

    What we’ve done:

     

    We attend The League’s summer camp each summer. This is a camp geared to educated youth about service learning, community service, team building, and leadership. Students come out of this three day camp completely inspired to be the change they want to see in their school. We’ve felt for years that these ideas were great but we simply had no idea how to do them and now we’ve been given the tools to make them reality.

     

    Various Projects so far this year:

     

    1.    INFO FAIR to educate all students, specifically the incoming freshmen class, on all available opportunities to get involved and be active in their high school experience.

    2.     KIDS AGAINST HUNGER has proved to be a popular event school wide.   Kids have fun while engaged in a service project where they are actively working to help reduce world hunger.  Each packaging event packages 10,000 meals with 1/3 of those meals going to local agencies to combat local hunger. 

    3.      PROJECT BACKPACK was a huge success again this year thanks to a wonderful community effort.  Salvation Army and DHS pool their resources to collect supplies to package hundreds of backpacks for kids heading back to school each year.  The backpacks are given away during an August carnival day!

    4.   I WILL/ I AM CAMPAIGN was inspired by the ten year anniversary of 9/11.  We challenge students to each make their pledge for change. Their change could be simple, school oriented, or personal. Our first year we recorded the pledges by students and played it back several times throughout the year.  This year we opted for a photo shoot where students wrote their pledges on themselves and the effect was dramatic!  By posted their pledges in a visible area in the school students have been reminded of the changes they would like to see in themselves, the school and the world.  

    5.    DANCING WITH THE STARS/FESTIVAL OF TREES/MADRIGAL DINNER are three big fundraisers with our local Hospice chapter.  Over the last two years, the Service-Learning class and Students United worked to secure 15 trees for donation.  Students have worked annually over the last 10 years to help make Dancing with the Stars the sold-out success it is each year.   Madrigal dinner relies heavily on the dozens of volunteer servers, cleaners, and entertainers.  Many students have returned year after year to participate in this wide-spread community fundraiser. 

    6.    MCSC GRANT WRITING  We are proud to report that five student groups wrote and were granted funds through the Michigan Community Service Commission to enact service projects throughout the public school community; projects which benefited the Animal Shelter, Hospice, Long Term Care at WMH, DeVos Children's Hospital, and The Salvation Army.

    7.    SALVATION ARMY SOUP KITCHEN.  Last year we sponsored, planned, prepared and served two meals in the soup kitchen.  Teams are working to do this again this spring after having served several times this school year.

     
     
     
     
     
     

     

    Challenge Day: Planning for upcoming school years

     

    1. Challenge Day (www.challengeday.org) is a group of professionals who come into schools and even corporations to work with groups of 80-150 students. Their goal is to help break down barriers in school, unite students, encourage success and empower students. The full days'' activity was so powerful it brought many students and adults to tears.


    1. Challenge Day'’s mission is "to inspire people to be the change they wish to see in the world, starting with ourselves, through compassion and service". Kids in general are not given instruction on how to change their sometimes destructive behavior, we just expected to stop or change. This full day workshop "teaches" kids how to change, it literally shows them what their behavior does and gets the root of not only understanding ourselves better but understanding and empathizing with others, both students and staff. Being more self aware, able to empathize, conscious of the possibility of change cannot but help students in the classroom, make classroom instruction easier by decreasing discipline issues.

    1. A project like this led by students for the students will be a success because it is student led. I would have been leery about this prior to having gone through it but now having experienced first hand the power it of and the immediate effect it can have, I want this for the students in my building. Any student, regardless of their level of achievement, ability, experience, motivation, ethnicity, gender, age or income can and will benefit from going through this workshop. Everyone walks away with a keener understanding of self, others, life, learning, humanity and community and it doesn’t end with the day… it lasts, it really lasts.

     

    1. A cross section of students ranging from 9th grade to 12 grade including adult representation (teachers, parents, administrators) will be participating. One of our issues in our building is the animosity between our different classes which is why we equal representation across the building. By securing the Sault Middle School as a venue for Challenge Day, we hope to create a positive atmosphere there that will last into their years at Sault High.

    1. The activity is designed to be a 6.5 hour long day of activities (not including lunch break). The trained professionals guide the students through several games and activities to engage them physically, mentally and emotionally. Infusing games, dancing and fun helps to break down barriers and working in small groups helps to create trust and sharing. The days activities open the door for many more meaningful group discussions and activities that could not have occurred without this workshop... the program is one day but the effects of the program are invaluable and lifelong. c. Can the program be reproduced with little or no cost in the future?

     

    1. Once the norms of the workshop have been established with the students, it takes very little for the positive effects to be felt school wide. Recreating several of the scenarios from the workshop in a classroom setting is quite easy, even when conducting them with students not in the workshop. The workshop facilitators do an excellent job of modeling that any teacher could follow and duplicate on a small scale. We anticipate a general change in the school atmosphere. We hope that the change in school climate would then decrease the occurrence of fighting, teasing, harassment, cruelty, prejudice, drop out, failure, and disrespect. 

     
Last Modified on February 4, 2020