Getting Geared up for Make a Difference Day

 After a successful day Bellevue team takes a moment to document and capture the day.

 With the help of CalSERVES's Classroom Leaders, AmeriCorps Service Scholars and staff, students and families at Bellevue Elementary are getting ready to make a difference on October, 27th. For the past several days, CalSERVES Classroom Leaders and AmeriCorps Service Scholars have been working together to promote this important day and make a positive impact at our school site! Last Friday, all the students in our After School Program got together outside of our school black-top to create and decorate more than 30 colorful posters!

 These are the supplies that were set-up for all the students to get creative!

Bellevue 3rd grade students work together as a team as they follow the four Tribe agreements.

Our 5th and 6th grade students are adding finishing touches.  As  part of their "COOL School Student Council" commitment, they've been working hard to promote this day during regular school hours.

From kindergarten to 6th grade, all of the students in our After School Program at Bellevue have worked together to make this year's "Make A Difference Day", on October 27th, the best service day that students and families from Bellevue have ever seen and attended! Our AmeriCorps volunteers, alumni, Classroom Leaders, staff, students and parents will be working on beautifying Bellevue's playground structure, re-painting recess border lines, and painting four mini murals on wall-balls. There is no doubt that the students and CalSERVES staff from Bellevue Elementary are dedicated to making a positive difference in several weeks!!!

 Our Kinder class takes a pose for the camera.

Ms. G. our 4th grade Classroom Leaders engages with her students as they finish up their
Make A Difference Day posters.

An Important Lesson on Service and Success from Cesar Chavez

Art by Kathleen Chosa

We cannot seek achievement for ourselves and forget about progress and prosperity for our community... Our ambitions must be broad enough to include the aspirations and needs of others, for their sakes and for our own. - Cesar Chavez




 Cesar Chavez was, among many things, an advocate for serving the needs of the whole community. After years of fighting personal injustice, Chavez made the resolute decision to represent those who needed representation. He chose to spend his life peacefully but fervently leading and serving those who had great needs.

Did you know that in his lifetime, Chavez never made more than $5,000 a year? (Good thing Chavez never defined success in financial terms!) He boldly declared in his actions that success meant making the world a better place – it didn’t mean financial prestige.

Chavez’s greatest achievement was his ability to lead a generation to passionately stand up to better their community. He couldn’t have achieved this without a great deal of personal sacrifice. He was blessed with talent, passion, and a deep sense of what’s right. Instead of using his gifts to get himself out of the poverty he knew, he used his gifts to lift others out of poverty. He sacrificed his time, his talents, and his aspirations to a greater good: the welfare of his community.

Who better to inspire us than a hero who gave years of his life to serve others? Do you aspire to his selflessness and his ability to encourage and strengthen his community? Everything we do in CalSERVES is aimed at just that: serving our community with the time, talent, and dedication of our staff, AmeriCorps members, and volunteers. Cesar Chavez’s legacy has taught us the important lesson that our actions can make all the difference in the well-being of our community.

Having oranges at the Cesar Chavez Health Fair

 If you are inspired by Chavez’s legacy, come give some of your time with us to celebrate on this Cesar Chavez Day. On March 31, we’ll be providing healthy food, entertainment, and medical/dental screenings to the community from 10 am – 2 pm at Meadow View Elementary School as a part of our Cesar Chavez Health Fair. If you are interested in volunteering, contact CalSERVES Volunteer Infrastructure Project Fellow Patrick Link at (707) 225-7458.

by Lauren Serpa, CalSERVES VIP Project Coordinator

Amazing Gardens at Meadow View

Earlier this month, Meadow View mentors, families, teachers and a professional landscaper dedicated their Saturday morning to build six new wooden garden boxes as part of a major plan to renovate and beautify the school garden. The day was a success-we were able to build all six boxes from scratch in three hours thanks to the help of several dedicated families and mentors. We also completed a substantial amount of weeding in the area that will be set aside for our habitat garden.

This year has seen several successes with the garden, beginning with a total of $1500 awarded to our gardening program thanks to Suburu and the City of Santa Rosa. Not only do we finally have the funds to be able to make this project a reality, we have had amazing support from families and mentors who have donated their Saturdays to make the garden a wonderful place of learning for students.

Currently, students will be focusing on making plans for the garden and planting seeds indoors to be ready for spring planting. Future projects include planting a habitat garden featuring flowers and shrubs that attract a host of insects and animals so that students can learn about garden ecology. In addition, we will be constructing an ADA-approved bed.

We are truly lucky at Meadow View to have such a wonderful community to support our vision for an integrative and inclusive gardening program in the after-school program!

by Holly Cumbie, VIP Fellow at Meadow View Elementary

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!

Canine Companions Visits Wright

Gabrielle O'Neil, AmeriCorps VIP Fellow at Wright Charter School 

In April, Canine Companions for Independence visited Wright Charter’s After School Program. The students gathered outside on the playground for the presentation where they learned about the different types of dogs that are trained, the families that the dogs go home with, and the tasks that each canine is trained to perform as an assistance dog. At the end of the presentation the students got to line up and pet the service dog that was brought in that day. Smiles grew from ear-to-ear throughout the crowd, making this presentation a great success!

Garden Clean Up Day at Meadow View

Christa Fox, AmeriCorps Mentor at Meadow View Elementary
  

The BEFORE Shot of Meadow View's Garden

On Saturday April 2nd, Meadow View mentors, students, family members, and volunteers spent some quality time in the garden pulling weeds, turning the soil, cleaning and organizing the shed, and prepping the garden for planting. With the weather improving, we are making the revamping of our garden a priority.

Meadow View has a fairly large garden and because of the success of the Garden Clean-up Day, we were able to clear the majority of weeds from the flowerbeds and walkways, as well as organize the tool shed. Many volunteers brought their own tools and gloves and got right to work.

Since April 2nd, volunteers have been working in the garden almost on a daily basis. Fruits and vegetables such as, onions, watermelon, peppers, and cantaloupe, have since then been planted and tended to by Meadow View’s Garden Club and Garden Specialist.

Reclaiming the Kawana Garden

Katherine Brooks, Supervising Teacher at Kawana Elementary

Since November, the CalSERVES crew at Kawana Elementary School have been working hard to get their school garden back into shape. Luckily, we have many enthusiastic supporters: students, parents, school staff, and other community members that all want to see the garden in a better state and used more often.

Rebecca Leung, Garden Club Organizer

“At Kawana Elementary School, we strive to offer our students as many resources as possible. However, we have one resource that is being seriously underutilized: our school garden. With 8,000 square feet, the garden is a sizable lot and needs a lot of maintenance and love.” – Rebecca Leung

Rebecca Leung, a full-time mentor and the leader in our movement to reclaim the Kawana Garden, has worked tirelessly to organize a student Garden Club, care for seedlings, and decorate our garden. She has even contacted businesses for donations and organized two Community Garden Days.

In February, the community gathered to organize the garden shed, prune trees, remove dilapidated benches, weed garden beds and cut LOTS of blackberry vines. Parents and students also planted many seeds that are growing now inside pots in our classrooms.

5th grade student Temo says about the first garden day “It was fun cleaning up because it helps our community. My favorite part was pulling all the weeds.”

Temo’s sister and mother also attended the first Community Garden Clean-Up and are excited to participate in the next one that the mentors put on.

Students working hard in the garden - Adrian (2nd) Isai and Temo (5th)

On April 2nd, Kawana’s Garden Club will have a Garden Day once again, and this time, we will be able to plant edible foods, flowers, and herbs in the prepared garden beds. We will also paint over any graffiti on the benches, and continue to remove weeds that don’t belong there. So join us April 2nd from 10 am - 1 pm and be a part of or movement to reclaim the Kawana garden, and check out more photos of our garden events on Flikr!

We look forward to making Kawana’s garden beautiful, and having fun while doing it!

VIP and Volunteers make a Big Impact in San Luis Obispo County

Wendy Lewis, the Associate Executive Director of the Food Bank Coalition

The AmeriCorps VIP program has definitely proven not only beneficial, but necessary for the Food Bank Coalition of San Luis Obispo County. Spread between two warehouses, the Food Bank only comprises of 23 paid employees, otherwise we gratefully rely on our pool of 400+ volunteers!

Our VIP fellows Stephanie Lossinsky and Megan Chicoine both handle our large database of volunteers, as they work with the volunteers and orchestrate opportunities for those who want to participate in the community. It is so important to nurture and establish positive, fun relations with the generous people who want to help the county, and Stephanie and Megan surely do that with great verve, leadership, and administration.

One of the core volunteer groups they look forward to working with is the vivacious and always entertaining 8th grade girls with Community Giving Back, which is a service-oriented program for youth that facilitates opportunities to attend camps and various educational programs. The 8th graders have been dubbed “The Fridays” since almost every Friday, between 4 and 7 girls join forces and tackle various tasks at the Food Bank warehouse in Paso Robles. Stephanie and Megan always look forward to when the girls come to the Food Bank because the Fridays complete the occasional dirty work—for instance, bagging onions for the Saturday distribution (sometimes there are a few grimy ones!)—with loads of laughter and cheery attitudes! They make sure that the Fridays know exactly how and who in SLO County they are helping.

It was really exciting during our "Have a Heart Food Drive" at Food 4 Less in February because the girls very excitingly gathered food from giving customers and even got to take turns dressing up as the amazing Food Bank mascot Sandie the Sandwich! Community Giving Back creator Kim Austin truly appreciates the relationship between the VIP Fellows Stephanie and Megan and the Fridays. All of them understand the value of service and enjoy the process of providing for the community.

Students Protest about Snack Choices

Mentors at the Wright Charter After School Program taught their students about work of Cesar Chavez by staging a mock protest. 1st and 2nd grade students made signs and marched around the campus declaring that they deserved the right to choose their own snacks.

"We don't choose your snack!" and  "Let us choose!" were a few of the signs. Everyone who participated had a good time, and learned the value of standing up in defense of human rights.

¡Si se puede!

Pictures of this event were taken by Jena Rufalow, AmeriCorps Team Leader and can be viewed here:
Picasa Album

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.

Protecting the City Creeks

Katie O'Looney, Supervising Teacher at Wright Charter School

On Monday, October 4th, the Full Time mentors and Leadership Team from Wright Charter School worked alongside with Betsy from the City of Santa Rosa to clean-up a creek off of Sonoma Avenue. We cleaned up lots of broken glass, old cigarettes, trash and pulled clothes and furniture from the creek.

After we cleaned a long stretch of the creek, we cut back invasive ivy from numerous trees along a walking trail. Our leader Betsy said that the Ivy plant usually takes over the tree and cuts off sunlight, nutrients and oxygen from the trees, causing them to eventually die.

We had numerous members who also discovered the wonderful poison oak plant and left them with a wonderful itchy, scratchy rash!

Overall, it was a wonderful day spent beautifying Santa Rosa as well as a great team bonding experience. For our job well done, we received awesome stickers saying we’re “CREEK PROTECTORS!”.

AmeriCorps Members are Getting Things Done!

Emily Mann, CalSERVES Program Coordinator

On the hottest day of the Summer, 40 AmeriCorps members got together to learn about their community and make a difference. Working with the City of Santa Rosa, they walked down to Colgan Creek (near Kawana Elementary School) and cleaned the area. 

With the sun beating down on them, and no Air Conditioning in sight, they worked with amazing enthusiasm and energy. This will be a fantastic year as this crew Gets Things Done for America! Way to go, CalSERVES!

Kindness Counts!

Every Wednesday, After School students at Kawana Elementary School engage in lessons called “Kindness Counts”, which focus on helping their community and the world around them. Throughout the year, Promise Fellow Katie Brooks has put together many lessons, some which allowed students to send warm wishes to the elderly, and encouraging others to engage in physical activity. 

This past month, third and fourth grade Cool School students were given a WHALE of a lesson! The children learned that whales were endangered, and got to be outdoors to measure how long a blue whale actually is! They also got the chance to save their own whale! By donation and saving their pennies, students in both grades raised enough money to adopt two blue whales! 

Students will get pictures of their whales, but want to know…where will we put them?

Learning through Service

Kara Shelton, AmeriCorps Mentor at Wright Charter School

This Spring at Wright Charter's After-School Program, the students are preparing Service Learning Projects. Students actively engage in organizing a community service project that integrates academic learning.

The 1st/2nd grade class is holding a recycled can and bottle drive in the school. The students are in charge of advertising the drive and adding the cans.

The 2nd/3rd grade class is hosting a clothing drive to help Sonoma County families in need.

The 4th grade class are hosting a car wash during Wright School's Open House to raise money for the local animal shelter.

The 4th/5th grade class are organizing a movie night to support the local animal shelter.

The 6th/7th grade class have reached out to local businesses to be able to throw an Ice Cream Social, also in support of the local animal shelter.

All the classes are actively involved in choosing, preparing and running their projects. All the students are excited to help out their larger community!

Service Learning at Roseland Elementary

Charlie Ruda, AmeriCorps Team Leader at Roseland Elementary

Service Learning Projects are in full swing at Roseland, and our various activities are centered on making our community a better place!

First graders have been studying the benefits of physical fitness. They have been talking about stretching, what muscles we use when we exercise, and how an active lifestyle keeps us healthy, all in preparation to teach their fellow first graders a fun workout routine.

Second graders have been learning about natural disasters and overcoming the damage they cause in the wake of the Haiti earthquake. In order to help rekindle a livable environment there, students are painting flower pots donated by Jail Industries, and are planting flowers which will beautify the homes of fellow students. Funds raised by selling the pots will be given to UNICEF, a supporter of people in need who have suffered because of natural disasters.

Third grade is looking at their project on a more local scale by appreciating the things that make Roseland a great place to live. After a visit to the Schultz Museum and a walking tour of the landmarks and assets of their neighborhood, they created a scrapbook reporting the reasons they appreciate living in Roseland, which was shared at a Cesar Chavez Health Fair table.

Fourth and Fifth grade have grouped together for their project: to create care packages for American soldiers who are fighting overseas. Focusing more on the rights and responsibilities of military members and the good they do for our country instead of rhyme and reason related to the current wars, they will observe the challenges and benefits of serving in the armed forces. After tabling at the Dollar Tree, they will send donated items to a group organizing care packages for our troops.

Sixth grade is taking a very personal approach to making the world a better place, by focusing on the “-isms” of society and how to eliminate hate in their own lives. Students have been talking about limiting bullying; stress management; advocating for the rights of students; how to challenge racism, sexism, and ignorance responsibly and respectfully; and creating a more supportive school climate. They are taking part in the Operation Beautiful campaign by posting positive messages anonymously on bathroom mirrors to encourage self-worth and self-respect among their school population. They have also learned about the challenge to avoid gang involvement in the area and why it can inhibit their personal success.

Group Learning about Cesar Chavez!

Lisa  Navarra, AmeriCorps Team Leader, Meadow View Elementary School

All week we had been learning about Cesar Chavez, a great inspirational social leader and Mexican American activist. Throughout the week students had been reading about Cesar’s life and discussing the values he stood for. Each tutoring student wrote about one important value and we compiled these into a ‘house of values’ (below). On Friday everything came together when both lower grades and upper grades had group tutoring sessions to celebrate and do activities, admiring what this man taught us.

While the older students heard a passionate piece of Chavez’ Grape Boycott speech the lower grades participated in an alphabet read aloud about Mexican culture and nature. All students also illustrated a favorite fruit or vegetable and wrote notes to the farmers who help to get this food to us; thus creating a ‘garden of thanks’ (also in photo above). To end our session of thanks and celebration, students planted seeds with their mentors to symbolize new life and the spring. A wonderful theme day enjoyed by all…the tutoring display is located in the Multi-Purpose Room to show off our students’ work.

The Dog House 3rd Grade Built!

Dani Deems, Part Time AmeriCorps Mentor at Kawana Elementary

It was a lot of fun developing a service-learning project with our third grade After School class at Kawana Elementary. The students worked in small groups to come up with at least five different service opportunities they wanted to help with. With a class vote, they decided to help the Humane Society. We facilitated small group discussions to see how they wanted to help. They chose to help stray dogs to have a home. We made sure the students understood that the class couldn’t keep the strays, but that maybe we could build a home for them and then donate it to the humane society. They really liked this idea and were excited to build a dog house.

Our Promise Fellow at Kawana, Jenny Gibson, was able to obtain a donation of wood so our kids could build a dog house. A mentor’s cousin volunteered to cut the wood for us, which was necessary for the safety of our students. The kids were so excited for the first day on the project. The first step was for students to draw markings on the wood so our helper would know where to cut the wood. While some kids were outside, the rest of them were inside following step-by-step directions in creating their own 3-D paper doghouse. This kept them pretty entertained and it was nice to see them working as a team and helping their neighbors when they couldn’t figure out what to do next.

Students painting their dog house.

Once the doghouse was put altogether, the next part was painting it. We did a primer coat first. They all got their chance to paint. While some of the kids were painting, the rest of them enjoyed a game of Frisbee, which they were calling a game of “fetch”. Our next step in the project will be painting the doghouse a shade of blue. That’s the color they had voted on. And finally the last step for our project will be finding a local chapter of the Humane Society that will accept our doghouse. We’d love for the next adopted dog to go home with our fabulous never-been-lived-in doghouse!

Service Learning at Sheppard Elementary

Amy Porter, AmeriCorps Promise Fellow at Sheppard Elementary

The AmeriCorps mentors and students at Sheppard Elementary are all engaged in Service Learning, amidst the hustle and bustle of many spring activities.

Our second grade after school class has chosen to do their service learning project on protecting marine wildlife. After studying the amazing creatures of the seas, they decided they wanted to do something to protect and keep these animals safe.

As a Promise Fellow, I was asked to find a presenter or field trip to enrich their learning experience. After doing much research and contacting about 6 different organizations, we were graced with a response from the Aquarium of the Bay in San Francisco. They were willing to provide our students with a free trip to their Aquarium; we just had to provide the traveling cost.

In order to raise the money to get there, our second grade mentors and students have stepped up and put on a fantastic bake sale for the teachers, a fund raiser at the restaurant Chevy’s, and a car wash. To watch our team come together to serve and enrich our student’s lives has been truly amazing. It is awe inspiring to watch people who are so busy with this life take those little extra steps to support one classroom.

It has also been exciting to see the support we have from the core day teachers at Sheppard. My feelings of gratitude for the school we serve in have grown exponentially in the last few days. I knew we had support, but to watch the love pour in from all directions has only reaffirmed why I love being a part of the AmeriCorps experience. Only when we push ourselves and give of ourselves freely, do we see the simple truth: there is no more beauty in this world than that which we make.