Make a Difference Day Part 1: Bellevue School

Make a Difference Day, October 27th, 2012, saw some amazing projects around the CalSERVES school sites as AmeriCorps members joined together to provide a day of service. What follows is the first post in series of 3 outlining the projects competed by CalSERVES AmeriCorps members. Each post is written by a Team Leader who worked on that specific project.

I consider Bellevue to be my home away from home and getting the opportunity to add some color and zest to it definitely sparked my interest. This being my second Make a Difference Day, my first being last year, I had high expectations for yet another exciting, fun, energetic, and rewarding service day, and let me tell you something... I was not disappointed!

 I had such an amazing day at Bellevue and was lucky to be able to work with such a diverse group of people. We had the honor of having Community Action Partnership (CAP) AmeriCorps members come to Bellevue to experience what it's like to be a BV Bulldog and we were to excited to have had both our Literacy content leader, Jacky, and our STEM content leader, Katie here as support! It was amazing to look around our school site to see all the members elbow deep in paint, tape stuck everywhere from their backs, sneakers, elbows, etc, and every person had a huge smile on their face.

Caption: Ms. C, the 1st grade Classroom Leader at Bellevue, focuses as she paints the boundaries for recess lines.

With the faint sound of 90's pop in the background, each member was divided into four projects: painting a map of the United States, creating new lines as boundaries for recess, creating and painting a mural for the wall ball courts, and adding classroom numbers on the blacktop for fire drills. Everyone took the projects head on and went right to work! I checked in with each project and there was nothing but the exchanging of smiles and boisterous laughs heard through out the Bellevue Elementary campus.

Laura Sanchez, AmeriCorps member at South Park Community Center, works hard in the sun to help beautify Bellevue.

 I found myself grinning from ear to ear while looking around at everyone giving back to Bellevue and realizing that each and every single member really is making a difference, whether they realize it or not. I am so excited that our Make A Difference Day went off without a hitch and the most rewarding part of the day was coming into school Monday morning and seeing the kids playing games on the newly painted United States and practicing with their classmates lining up at their classroom number painted on the blacktop. I think I can speak for all of the people that were here at Bellevue that we really made a difference at Bellevue on Saturday!

Team Leader at Bellevue, Sara Craige, does her best to paint in the east coast states.

By: Sara Craige, Team Leader at Bellevue Elementary