Project Pump

Project PUMP (People Uniting More People) is an organization started by six high school seniors as part of their service learning project.We decided we wanted to work with kids and help them reach their full potential after reading alarming statistics such as: *Children living in the lowest 20% of income brackets are SIX times more likely to drop out of high school as those living in the highest 20%. *Of the 7.1 million children who have at least one parent in jail 70% of them will in turn end up in prison themselves. * By eighth grade, 33% of students will have experimented with either drugs or alcohol. We at Project PUMP endeavor to promote growth of tolerance, respect, motivation, friendship and community by working with at risk children and providing them with such knowledge to do so in "at risk" areas such as the Freehold Borough, Long Branch or Lakewood NJ, as well as within the wider community. Once a month we at Project PUMP plan to work with fourth grade students in at risk areas in the central New Jersey area. Our visits will serve the purpose of helping the students gain a better grasp on tolerance among different groups including religious, ethnic and gender factions through exploring topics such as teambuilding and civic responsibility within the community. We will also plan many activites which provide the students with a common goal, where they can put aside their differences and interact on a common ground. Through this we can provide them with life long lessons of cooperation and civic responsibility that will continue serving them in the long run. Our activities will include bringing in speakers along with other hands on activities such as “fan” of validation where students write positive attributes of their fellow classmates. Further along, we hope to plan a trip with some of the children to New Jersey's State House where they can their community at work. Project PUMP can unite diverse groups in these areas and show them how to looked past skin color and learn to like everyone for who they are not what they are.