Update: Week One -The seventh graders at La Salle Academy (the school where I am working) voted on three service projects that they wanted to do to effect (affect?) change in their neighborhoods. The pojects were: "A Peace mural to reflect our 'peaceful community'" "A can, and clothing drive for a local soup kitchen and a teddybear drive for a local women and children's shelter." and "A way to inform their communities, churches, and benefactors why their school is important to them" The kids chose these projects and voted for their top two choice project to work on. I then put them into 3 groups of 5 and we discussed supplies that we would need. Week Two While I was working with the kids on the second thursday, my principal came up to me and told me that before we had left for school she had recieved a phone call that I had one the grant! The first thing that the kids said when I told them was that we should write them a thank you letter!! During this week we focused on the important questions that they needed to answer about their service learning projects. Who, What, When, Where, Why, How, and your intened Impact. After we finished those papers we discussed which project was most feasable to begin with and we are starting with the "inform our community about our school." I also told the kids that a woman from the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program (MAP) was going to help us create the peace mural and it would be outside their recess yard on a side street. THey were really excited because then the community could see it as well. Wednesday December 10, 2008 Today was the first day we broke tiles for the mosaic. I had to come on Wednesday because Irene was helping the kids with their Christmas gifts and so she was already at La Salle for the day. Maggie Kelly offered to come and help me with the breaking of tiles and it is very smart that I accepted the offer. By the time we lefts school and made it to La Salle it was ten of four. As I was parallel parking,  I saw Irene carrying the last box of tiles into the school. It was then that the nervousness excitement set in. We were actually beginning one of our projects for good. We carried our supplies into the school (the ones that I had bought) and set up in the “cafeteria.” I went up to seventh grade and asked them to come down to the lunchroom. I asked them to sit in five groups of three. We (Maggie, Irene, Mr. Joram, Irene’s friends, S. Jeanne, and I) handed out hammers and black soft gloves. Each table received a bucket and they broke all the tiles and they were so excited!

Additional hours volunteered: 10
Additional people involved: 3

Update: Over the last 2 weeks, Thursday Jan. 29, and Thursday Jan. 21, my seventh graders have been working on posters. These posters are going to hang all over the school to announce the foodrive to the other homerooms. When I posed the question to the kids, "How will you get a bored third grader to pay attention to your project?", they agreed that a prize to the homeroom who collects the most cans. We decided on cupcakes for the kids.

Update: Thursday februrary 26th This week we had an awesome class. And I think that that was becuase it was so interactive for the kids. As soon as I got there Ms. Oneill saw me walking up stairs and said, "here are the boxes!" Then I got really excited before I even got to class. When i made it up the stairs 5 boxes a puse and a video camera in hand:) my kids were very excited. I handed out the boxes and I explained that we needed to tape the boxes up place a flyers on the boxes. The kids then brought the boxes around to each room, hung up their posters, and took pictures. Four homerooms had already brought in cans!!! Ms. Diamond also suggested that the Crystal, Christina,and Paige make a chart to track how many cans each homeroom brought for the winners

Additional hours volunteered: 5
Additional people involved: 75

Update: Thursday March 5th Well two days in a row of La Salle, how lucky am I? Today at La Salle we totaled the list of cans for each homeroom and the tallies of their cans, and Paige, Zoe, and Crystal created the total for the chart. The kids also told me that the other homerooms did not have that many cans. So I assigned two students to go to each homeroom to talk about the Inn again and talk up the drive and the prize! We then made plans to put together the cupcake party! I also told them about Barb and Brie’s Visit. The kids were very intrigued by the idea of Barb’s Family living during the Holocaust, and they are psyched for the Champions visit. As am I; it will be a chance for me to show off my class to my “Bosses” that is how I explained Barb and Brie to my kids. ☺ Michael also raised an interesting point. He said that he wanted to write about the things we are doing on Thursdays. I would be so pleased if we could put together a kind of book about the kid’s experience. That would be very fulfilling for me.

Additional hours volunteered: 3

Update: Friday March 13 Today I left school at 1:50 to take the seventh graders to St. Francis. I met them at La Salle and Fr. Herb, Ms Taish, Mr. Joramm, and Ms. Diamond and myself drove a car full of donations and kids to Kensington. The kids were really great. They took the time to help Amanda, Jamie, Fred and Flo to load the cans down the shoot. One of the girls turned to me and smelled someone smoking Marijuana; she said "I hate the smell of weed." I was floored. I couldn't believe the amount that the kids deal with every day. After we un-loaded all of the cars, Jamie took the kids on a tour of the inn through the pantry, kitchen, and chapel. It was such a blessing to hear how excited the kids were to, they realized that they really made a difference

Additional people impacted: 1119

Update: March 19th: Today Barba and Brie came to talk to the Class!!! I had off today, so I came and helped out in fifth grade during the day. At 4:00 I answered the door for Barb and Brie, and we saw Ms. Divine, and then walked up stairs. They got so see the La Salle kids' halway with all the Catholic Service Lent quotes :)We then introduced the kids and Teresa Dimond to Barb and they began the presentation. Barb spoke at lenght about how the meory of her parents, Holocaust survivors, spurred her to create champions. The kids were excited to hear about a person who had expierenced the descrimination that some of them felt. When Barb talked about living through the civil rights movement, the kids connected with her. She also spoke about why her mother asked her to be a "Mensch" or a Champion every single day. She spoke about how she created Champions to bring together different groups of students from all walks of life to form a Socailly Just Youth. She loved our attituded of gratitude ideas and was so happy when the kids asked how they too could be Champions. I promised that they could write to Barb and Brie to explain what they did to become Champions in the following weeks to come! They also all reacieved buttons, and it made me so proud to see them pin them straight onto their sweaters and sweatshirts

Update: Tuesday April 7th: Today I met with Teresa Diamond and Irene Rodgers to finalize the plans for the mosaic. The mosaic is going up Next friday (the 17th); I am so excited but at the same time very nervous that something may go wrong or that we will have chaos. Friday April 10th: Today I drove to the Home Depot on Bustleton ave where I met Steve, Ellie, and Ken, Home Depot associates, and Assistant Manager Tony. THe four of them were so kind to me I would recomend their Home Depot to anyone! So Tony brought me a cart full of broken tiles, and gave me a 25 lb bag of antique white grout with a large bucket of mastic!!! I couldn't believe the extent of his generosity, and I am so exicted, and nervous that the project is within one week away. I then went to the Home Depot in Cheltenham and bouight $130.88 of supplies including sponges buckets tarps and all other mosaic materials that I needed.

Update: This is the final grant update! Since finishing the La Salle School year, my students have shared what the mosaic means to them to people all throughout the school community and Philadelphia. I had the opportunity to take them on a trip to the Philadelphia Magic Gardens, a 10-block mosaic garden to go on a tour. The staff at the magic garden was very impressed with the students and their efforts at mosaic making, and all of their service work. I was privileged to attend their end of the year Mass and celebration where they acknowledged how instrumental the service work was for the children. Thank you to anyone who has followed this blog and if you have any questions, would like more information on any of the information posted, would like to contact the school, or would like to replicate the project please email me at clairegeruson@gmail.com. Thank you!

Additional hours volunteered: 14
Additional people impacted: 100
Additional people involved: 15

Claire Geruson
Number of people in the organization: 118 (approx)
Number of people impacted: 300+
Describe the impact the grant had: The most important thing that came from this project was the mutual knowledge that my students and I gained from each other. We are about five years apart. We represent at least six different heritages. We have a variety of learning abilities and disabilities. However, regardless of that information, we joined together to perform service work. This inter-racial, generational, or educational interactions would have been greatly decreased without the aid DoSomething grant. I could not have taken the kids on a field trip, bought treats for the program, helped put together a Mosaic, or produce the DVD.
Project highlights: 1)While we were making the movie, I asked the students to share a little about what they are grateful for. One boy, Kenny, without prompting from me, said he loved doing the Thursday afternoon service projects with “Miss” Claire. Moments like that make me so proud to teach. 2)Our first day of mosaic making was on a Friday during the school day, in part so that the school community could see our progress. I was rewarded during the making of the mosaic when the students shared with pride the reasons that we were making a mosaic, “Because we are doing service work for our school!” 3)My kids continued to surprise me throughout the year with the “life” they had to deal with every single day. On the recent trip to the nearby soup kitchen to deliver the proceeds from our food drive, I overheard several students saying, “Hey I’ve been here before.” I was floored by how cavalier of an attitude the students had about the soup kitchen. Then, I learned that I had to tread much more carefully. The neighborhoods where I was saying things like, “Hey, we can definitely clean up this block!” were where my students lived. I had to make very certain that I did not tread on any of their identities because I an outsider in their world. This was a highlight because of the learning expierence for me.
How did the project unfold and develop? I have had the blessing of participating in a service program for high school teenagers called Ambassadors of Caring. One of the requirements of being an ambassador is to perform a year-long service project. I knew that I wanted to work with students and I wanted to teach them about my passion: service work. I have built a relationship with La Salle Academy, a small, private-Catholic grade school in a poor area of North Philadelphia, and so I spoke with their principal Teresa Diamond. Ms. Diamond expressed to me a desire for her children to be more “grateful.” She said “I want to create an attitude of gratitude in my kids. Much of what they need is given to them, and they don’t really have an idea of quite how to give back.” The mission states, “La Salle is an independent [Catholic] school …[They] strive to educate children in grades 3 through 8 who face significant financial, social, and academic challenges and whose families believe that quality education is the key to change their futures.” The families of La Salle children are asked to pay only twenty dollars a month towards their education. In return, the children receive breakfast, lunch, uniforms, school supplies, backpacks, and a loving Catholic environment in which to grow. Ms. Diamond explained to me that with all the children receive; it is sometimes difficult for them to grasp a “giving back” attitude. Through Attitude of Gratitude, they are learning to implement the phrase “to whom much is given, much is expected.” My desire to both perform service work and to teach inspired me to work with the seventh grade students for the Attitude of Gratitude Project. The 15 children in the seventh grade collaborated in groups to formulate a service project that they could implement in their Philadelphia neighborhood. We voted on the service projects and chose three to implement for the year. We worked with a local artist to create a Peace mosaic that is on one of the school’s interior walls to demonstrate that we are a peaceful community and to beautify the school. We are using media (videos, pamphlets, fliers, and news announcements) to inform people in the community about La Salle and the projects that we have created. Finally, we had a canned food drive that the seventh grade ran to collect food for a local soup kitchen; the school collected 1,119 non-perishable items! Since I volunteer regularly at this soup kitchen, I was able to take my students for a visit there. The students saw firsthand how their food drive bounty would be put to use in the community. The Attitude of Gratitude program has run for the school year, meeting every Thursday for planning and implementing periods. For the first half of the year, the students learned about the importance of leadership and service. During the latter half, the students implemented the projects. On the final week which is coming up, the children are planning to have a dedication for the peace mosaic where the movie will be débuted, and the younger students will hear what the seventh grade learned from their service work. This final assembly of students, teachers, and parents is the culmination point. The seventh grade has the opportunity to share what they have gained from service work, and for what they are truly grateful. They will also share stories about their projects, obstacles they encountered, and skills they learned. This provides the children with a way to share their new knowledge and to get younger classmates interested in making a difference and giving back to their neighborhood.