On March 28 and 29, staff and I were in Atlanta at the Mary Agnes Jones Elementary School for the first hands-on trial of “Champions Serving Others.” With support from Lowe’s, SkillsUSA has put on a CD all the necessary materials for students to conduct community service activities.
With the assistance of Gayle Silvey, Georgia state association director, we had over 50 teachers and students from 14 schools across the state go through the steps of “planning, implementation and celebration/reflection” on the CD for conducting a successful community service project. The project was beautification of the elementary school itself. Three trainers took the students through the curriculum, and then three teams of students worked through the afternoon refurbishing a nature trail, building planters, etc. At the end – the celebration part – there were special Champions Serving Others medals for the students, and all of the tools used in the projects were raffled off to the teachers. I’m not sure whether the students or teachers were more excited. Lowe’s sent approximately 20 people to help and the director of community affairs from Georgia-Pacific corporate also attended. It’s a great day to reflect back on.
