Poetry Café at R.L. Stevens

On Friday, April 13^th the Jaguars, the second grade after school class lead by Diana Sharkawy and Eddie Castañeda, hosted a poetry café at R.L. Stevens School. The recital came after a class study of Jamaican Dub Poetry, and a poetry writing workshop experience.

The event began with an invocation from Sharkawy, followed by the majority of students reading their own works aloud to a rapt audience of family, friends, and the fourth grade cool school class. A few shyer students opted to have Sharkawy read their poems to the audience on their behalf. Once the Jaguars finished sharing their poems, families were invited to stay for refreshments and an opportunity to read with their children from a collection of poetry books the mentors had assembled from the school and public libraries.

It was exciting for all involved to watch the second graders take pride in their work. In the coming weeks the Jaguars will star in a play that the students, with mentor guidance, will have written, staged, and directed themselves. If the success of their poetry presentation is any indicator, this capstone production will be another runaway success for the Jaguars. Here at R.L., we can hardly wait to see our beloved Jags perform once more!

~Rachel Socia

Literacy Tutoring Team Leader

R.L. Stevens School 

CalSERVES CANstruction!

CalSERVES participated in the annual "CANstruction: Make Food into Art Contest" held at Coddingtown Mall in Santa Rosa, CA. Over 10,000 cans of food were used in making this year's displays, and all of the canned items will be donated to the Redwood Empire Food Bank to feed over 78,000 people!

The display is currently up at Coddingtown Mall, and the People's Choice awards are still open for votes through Saturday,  March 17th. Come on down and vote for your favorites... especially if it's the CalSERVES display!

Thanks to all the amazing folks who made this year's fabulous art!

Happy Valentine's Day from CalSERVES

Just a few hearts from us to you!

Students from Taylor Mountain After School

Artwork from CalSERVES Student 2008

Volunteer Highlight

Leah Everett, AmeriCorps VIP Fellow at Roseland Elementary

Our volunteers at Roseland have been amazing: consistent, responsible, passionate about helping our kids, positive, and ready to learn. In addition to the fantastic individuals who come each week to support classrooms, help with homework, and lead activities, we have a few special groups that are completing senior service learning projects with CalSERVES at Roseland.

First, our returning volunteer Nallely Ramirez, and her classmate Veronica Corona, from Windsor High School, are planning a fantastic event for February. We will be helping them to host a Multicultural Fair, where students will spend the after noon traveling “around the world” from booth to booth. At each station, they will learn customs of different nations around the globe, taste-testing recipe binder examples of foreign cuisine, completing crafts that symbolize a cultural practice, and hearing stories of different ways of life. These activities will support their exposure to new ideas and promote tolerance of various groups of people. A few of the nations students will explore will be China, Greece, Mexico, and Italy, though there will be eight country booths in total. Our students will be taking passports around to each station to earn a stamp, as one of many tokens by which they can remember this remarkable experience. We are thrilled to help support this event, and are proud of these volunteers who are working so hard to plan and fundraise to make it possible.

We are also in the midst of supporting another service-learning project, by two seniors from Ursuline, Amanda Osequera and Jennifer Bipes. As the girls' academic focus is supported by an art-core, they hoped to build their project around the artistic expression of younger students. In past years at Roseland, we were blessed with the wonderful Imagination Bus Project, where visiting not-for-profit volunteers would bring our kids on-board a renovated bus to complete art projects ten at a time. Since we’re well acquainted with this system for pulling kids out and encouraging their artistic expression, it was a smooth transition to support their project in this same format. The girls were pleased with the idea, and after some activity planning and support from Ursuline for art materials, the project started. We have had such a successful experience so far and the students really appreciate the existence of art in their school. We are so thankful to be able to help facilitate such a fantastic project idea to allow our kids the freedom of expression and support their artistic abilities.

We have fantastic volunteers at Roseland, and we hope to acquire more who will support CalSERVES and make our program more successful.

The Imagine Bus Project

Jane Lang, Imagine Bus Project North

Students show their art created on the Imagine Bus.

For two hours every Tuesday after school at Sheppard Elementary, The Imagine Bus Project North parks its mobile arts studio out in front and gets ready to welcome kids who are in the CalSERVES after school program. With yellow "bus passes" in hand, the kids board the Bus to create whatever project is happening for that week. It might be making rainsticks or clay bird nests or even monoprints with our very own printing press. Or maybe we will learn about a school of art and do a project in that school's style.

The kids get to learn about the larger world beyond Sonoma County: be it folk arts from other countries, art influences from times gone by, or even principles of art making, while creating a project that they can take home and proudly share with their family. We, on the Bus, know how important art exposure and experiences are for these kids as they build self esteem and self mastery. And art can even improve academic grades! But most importantly, it teaches a child how to dream and imagine beyond his current scope of vision, creating a more hopeful future with broader options to explore as they mature.

To learn more about the Imagine Bus Project, visit their website: imaginebusproject.org

Imagine Bus Comes to Sheppard!

Betsy Jones, Supervising Teacher at Sheppard Elementary/RAMS

Sheppard Students, 4-6 grade, create on the Imagine Bus

The Sheppard After School program has a special visitor every week—the Imagine Art Bus. Each week, Jane Lang and her volunteers come to the site to lead exciting and engaging art projects. The bus holds 10 students at a time but we’re able to send 20-25 students each visit. Students work at specially designed workstations, dabbling in a variety of forms, mediums, and styles. From mandalas to wooden sculptures, our students bring home beautiful works of art each Tuesday. We’re looking forward to all the amazing lessons and creations the Imagine Art Bus brings this spring!

Claudia

Rufus