June 22, 2009

A Giving Choice

At Ridgecrest Intermediate, students pick, plan and even budget service projects

Author: Kate Mather Staff Writer
Edition: Torrance
Section: NEWS
Page: 3A

Article Text:

Some people might hesitate to hand middle school students $5,000, but one local organization does just that – and lets the students decide how to spend it.

This year, 36 students in Jacque Hockensmith’s leadership class at Ridgecrest Intermediate School participated in Project: GIVE, a Glendale-based program that gives middle school students funding for community service projects in an effort to instill service values at a young age.

“We just feel strongly that if you can get children to serve by the time they’re 12 and 13 and 14 years old, they’re going to serve for the rest of their life,” said Dianne Callister, executive director of the Singer Foundation, the parent organization of Project: GIVE.

Project: GIVE came to the Rancho Palos Verdes school after Callister approached Hockensmith and asked if she would be interested in participating in the program.

“Basically, she got us involved and the kids just ran with it,” Hockensmith said.

Students were divided into groups to research different projects in the area and then presented their proposals to the rest of the class. Students then voted on ! which projects to complete based on what would best serve the community within the $5,000 budget. The class worked together to make their ideas a reality.

Allowing the students to decide what projects they wanted to do – which at Ridgecrest ranged from selling snow cones and raising money for the Olive Crest children’s center to cleaning the beach and collecting school supplies to send to students in Africa – gave them the opportunity to build a strong connection to the projects, Hockensmith said.

“It gave them the chance to really show their individuality and what they wanted to help and who they wanted to help,” Hockensmith said. “They have their own personal touch with whatever project they do.”

By involving the students in the decision making process, Project: GIVE is able to capitalize on their talents, Callister said.

“They’re much more creative – they see things differently, they fund things that we never would have funded as a foundation,” Ca! llister said. “It’s really just a chance for them to learn at ! this age and to use their intelligence to help solve problems.”

Students said they learned a lot – and taught others – from their participation in Project: GIVE.

“It was great to come up with an idea to help others,” said seventh-grader Moeko Aramaki. “It helped me to realize that we’re really fortunate to have the things we have.”

“It helps kids be more aware of people way more misfortunate than them and a way they can help in really easy ways,” said eighth-grader Andre Enriquez, who added that most of his peers might not know this.

“That’s why Project: GIVE really helps,” he said.

This is the first year Ridgecrest has participated in Project: GIVE – and it was the first school in the district to host the program – and Hockensmith said she hopes to build upon its success next year.

“Now that we know what to expect, we’ll be able to expand our idea of what we can do with them,” she said. “Now that we’ve taken baby steps, we can go further.”

! The objective of the program, Hockensmith said, is to show students how much of an impact their work can have on the community.

“That’s our goal,” she said. “To teach these kids that one person doing one act of kindness can make a tremendous difference.”

Students seem to have understood the message.

“I learned how helping charity really warms my heart and there are a lot of people less fortunate than me,” said seventh-grader Julie Lee. “I also learned that just one person can make a huge difference.”

Hello we are the students of Montessori Hale O Keiki Middle School,

Our goal is to support and help the Kihei and Wailuku library. This week we have decided to create buttons with positive messages towards the libraries. The buttons will be sold at a low price to the public. We will also create a reading list for public school children and awards will be given to students who read most of the books. Our next task is to create reading forms and design the buttons. Our next meeting is on April 21st.

James Keyhani

Apr 28, 2010
Today we have decided to make buttons and shirts for the local library. We have also started our designs for buttons and shirts. Our future goal is to finish our designs by Friday, order them and get them in next Friday and start selling.

James Keyhani

May 13, 2010 


This week we have found a shop on Maui that will help us print the shirts. The design for the shirts and buttons are finished. We still need to send in our orders for shirts and buttons, and we hope to finish that by tomorrow, Friday. The shirts and buttons are planned to take a week to be shipped. Our goal is to have two events. One event will be at our school campus and the other will be at Hot Topic, a teen store. We decided to sell shirts at a teen store because the libraries have had a hard time gathering a teen audience. We think if we sell shirts with positive library messages on them it will attract more teens to the libraries.




The Montessori Hale O Keiki Middle School

May 16, 2010
This week we have found a shop on Maui that will help us print the shirts. The design for the shirts and buttons are finished. We still need to send in our orders for shirts and buttons. The shirts and buttons are planned to take a week to be shipped. Our goal is to have two events. One event will be at our school campus and the other will be at Hot Topic, a teen store. We decided to sell shirts at a teen store because the libraries have had a hard time gathering a teen audience. We think if we sell shirts with positive library messages on them it will attract more teens to the their libraries.

Jordan Priest

May 22, 2010
This week we have submitted our order for the shirts we designed to a local printing company. We have decided that we will not continue with the idea of making and selling buttons. We have confirmed our ability to sell shirts at the Hot Topics event this upcoming Wednesday. I am pleased to report that the majority of our class is able to participate in selling the shirts and promoting the support your local libraries message.

The Kihei Library will be providing brochures and we still need to follow up with the Wailuku Library to pick up brochures from them, we anticipate completing this on Monday.

Jordan Priest

May 28, 2010
On Wednesday we had our event at Hot Topic. We sold six shirts and made a little over 100 dollars total. Tomorrow, Saturday, we have an event at Whole Foods from 11am to 1pm. We expect to have much more traffic on Saturday due to the weekend date and location. The Whole Foods event is joint with the libraries on Maui. Next week are school is having a family dance, we plan on selling shirts at that event as well. The shirts we do not sell are going to be donated to the Kihei and the Wailuku library.

Jordan Priest

Back to Project Updated

Started: February 2010
Completed: June 2010
Teacher: Valerie Swift (2010)

Back to Project Updated

Started: February 2010
Completed: June 2010
Teacher: Valerie Swift (2010)

Back to Project Updated

Started: February 2010
Completed: June 2010
Teacher: Valerie Swift (2010)

Back to Project Updated