Hello everyone interested in service learning!

The intent of this post is to give everyone an update on our status and progress so far.

Our club is meeting on the FIRST TUESDAY of each month, although we are tentatively considering the SECOND TUESDAY FOR JANUARY ONLY – no school the first Tuesday that month.

Meetings run officially from 3:42pm until 4:45pm.

We had a great signup and great turnouts for our first two meetings in October and November. So far this year, our kids have helped organize and execute the Halloween costume drive, Trick or Treating for UNICEF, and a great activity for Mott childrens hospital that involved our kids putting together activity kits for Mott kids – these included crayons and coloring kits as well as putting together fleece “crown” kits that give Mott kids distractions and warm fleece “hats” to wear.

Thanks to everyone who has shown interest in the new service learning club at Burns Park Elementary, Burns Park Kids Care!

This week, we will be sending home a flyer with details about the initial club meetings and how to get started.

As of now, meetings are planned for the first Tuesday of every month, beginning October 3rd, at the school (room is currently TBD, as of this posting, but we will make it known and will post directions to the room at the front doors.) WATCH THIS SPACE!

Meetings will run from 3:45pm till 4:45pm (FIRST TUESDAY OF EACH MONTH.)

Please feel free to use this forum to ask questions or post ideas for the group, potential project ideas, and comments. Also, you can read more about the national Kids Care Club organization, which is a good resource for us with no constraints or obligations, here: www.kidscare.org

In the early May PTO meeting, we talked about some options to expand on service learning. Some of them focused on ways of showing kids the impact of the work they are doing: for example, to help deliver the lunches made in “Lunches with Love” to see why they are doing it, or to follow through with charitable fundraising to see what is being funded.

Other ideas included expanding on community service work such as keeping the park clean, ecology-related projects and even projects that might link to the science curriculum (such as a focus on energy efficiency).