Tuesday, December 18, 2012

We Reached

Today is the first day of our Winter Break. Due to budget cuts and furlough days, we get 3 whole weeks off. To be honest, I need them. This is one of the busiest times of year for me at work. At my school I am the student activities coordinator. I plan dances, assemblies and other school wide events. This year I decided to resurrect an old tradition at my school known as Waldo Reaches Out. (Waldo is the name of my school. Please don't stalk me or be a creeper.) Basically I coordinated 6 or so different service projects for all 930+ of my little babies.

My students are awesome. I mean yes, they are in middle school, so they have that going against them, but overall I really like them. My students/school kind of has a reputation of being rough or a bunch of little gangsters. Yes, we have some punks, and yes most of my students are low income, but overall they are awesome.  I have found that they really like to give and help others. They just need the opportunity to help. Waldo Reaches Out gives them that opportunity and also helps to show the community a different side than what our reputation is.

We did a number of service projects for WRO.
Annual Food Drive
We collected about 1000 pounds of food.
Dog Biscuits for the Humane Society
The cooking classes baked up 18 batches of dog treats that will be given to the Humane Society.

Alphabet and Number Books for local Head Start classrooms
These are some of the pages the students made today. I think in total we had 50 completed number books and at least that many alphabet books!

Holiday Cards and ornaments for Seniors
The sewing classes made the ornaments. The cards were made in several classes as well.
Toothbrush Kits
The special ed class did a hygiene unit and then collected money and created these dental hygiene kits that will be given out at homeless outreach events.

Cards and Letters for the troops
We created a ton of Thank You cards that will be sent to soldiers stationed overseas. Some of them were really good. I should have gotten a picture! Some were also really funny :) I encouraged them to write jokes inside to help bring a smile to our soldiers. Earlier this year my leadership class ran candy donation drive after Halloween and we sent 50 pounds of Halloween candy to one of our teachers who is currently deployed.

Also our wood shop classes made and donated around 400 wooden toys, we put together 300 journals for Headstart, sorted 1200 books and so much more. My students are amazing!



Newlywed Moments




7 comments:

Jen said...

The dog treats are awesome, such a nice thing to do. Enjoy your break! :)

Helene said...

what amazing projects, that is so amazing and all done my middle school kids. I love it!

Jamie said...

This is awesome. What a great lesson for the kids!

Holly said...

Hi Casey! I'm a new follower from Walkabout Wednesday!

I love the projects you did with your students. I teach very young kids and middle school teaching wouldn't be for me but it's so nice to see motivated teachers who can look beyond the angst and attitudes of young teens and love what they do!

My blog is a new work in progress but come check it out!

Holly
http://www.stayrighthereblog.blogspot.ca

Holly said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Becky Dougherty said...

Casey,

That's AWESOME! What an amazing way to give back! I have found that sometimes, my students who have the least are the ones who are eager to give back. Interesting, isn't it?

Not that it's good that there are budget cuts and furloughs, but I'm totally jealous of your 3 weeks off. I could use that! Enjoy!

Merry Christmas! :)

SMD @ lifeaccordingtosteph said...

You rock! You're giving back, and teaching kids the importance of being a part of a community as well. That's so great.