A Day On, Not a Day Off

Art by Kathleen Chosa

How are you celebrating Martin Luther King Day? Sleeping in? Hitting great sales? Or are you giving back to the community?

If you are like the CalSERVES AmeriCorps folks, you will be giving a day of service! Yes, they give service pretty much around the clock, providing over 1700 hours each during the 10 months they work in our programs. But this AmeriCorps Service Day is an opportunity to do things that are a little different.

This year marks the 25th Anniversary of the Martin Luther King Jr. Federal Holiday, and organizers see the milestone as a perfect opportunity for Americans to remember Dr. King’s life and legacy and to honor him by taking action to solve problems in their communities.

For 2012, the folks putting on the Service Day decided to focus on helping kids facing homelessness and in foster care. Different community organizations were selected to provide with help, and over 100 AmeriCorps members are going at it! Here's what they will be doing:

• Preparing brunch for families and lead fun activities with children at a homeless center;
• Moving supplies of a non-profit that helps women in crisis to new site, building planter boxes, painting, and hanging curtains;
• At a Homeless Resource Center, painting and cleaning children’s play area, installing basketball hoop, organizing adult and children’s areas;
• At a school for children that have been abandoned or neglected, painting the MPR and kitchen, organizing/cleaning the emergency storage area, garden clean up, and campus revitalization.
• Making quilts to give to children in crisis.

I'm impressed.

So, how will you Make a Difference?   

by Emily Mann, CalSERVES Project Coordinator 

COOL Sports Cheer and Dance

Students from Taylor Mountain gear up for Cheer

“Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday (Do it!)
Friday, Saturday to Sunday (Do it!)
Get, get, get, get, get with us, you know what we say, say
Party every day, p-p-p-party every day

And I’m feelin’, woohoo, that tonight’s gonna be a good night
That tonight’s gonna be a good night, That tonight’s gonna be a good night
Woohoo!”

And what a good night (or day) it was! The six CalSERVES after school sites gathered for our first COOL Sports Challenge of the year at RL Stevens to perform their awesome Cheer and Dance routines on stage! 

RL Stevens students cheer on other teams

The room was filled with two mentors from each site, proud parents, teachers,  and RL’s principal. The students were excited with their nervous smiles as they waited for their turn on stage. It was nice seeing their mentors giving them pep talk to high fives to help excite and calm their nerves at the same time. Seeing our extraordinary Supervising Teachers Taylor Ford and Yesenia Salas-Chavira MC the event is always a bonus! This year, I had the privilege in being one of the judges along with
Katie McCormick, Lauren Serpa and Megan Randles. We got to choose each team to “Walked it out” with an award and two walked away with our first ever Sportsmanship trophies! 

Kickin' off the event

“I think sportsmanship is knowing that it is a game, that we are only as good as our opponents, and whether you win or lose, to always give 100%.” This was how our fifth grade student kicked off our event by reading this awesome quote by Sue Wick. … which led to the wild cheers and applause for each other throughout the entire event!

I love, love, love watching people dance (especially kids!) and I couldn’t sit still in my own seat. Who knew that lyrics like “Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle yeah! Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle yeah! Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle yeah” would make one want to move!

Our COOL Sports kids definitely rocked the house. Everybody had a good time and we almost
lost our minds…  they definitely “got the mooooooves... like jagger!”

Meadow View students wait for their turn

Congratulations to all! Here are the awards:
Hardest Cheer – Meadow View
Most Unique – Kawana
Most Encouraging – Bellevue
Loudest Cheer – Wright
Most Spirited – Taylor Mountain
Funniest – RL Stevens

Sportsmanship trophies awarded to:
Wright
Meadow View

All the COOL Sports Cheer participants

Want to see what you missed? Check out the talent of our kids at www.youtube.com/calserves. Don’t miss our next COOL Sports Challenge in February. See you there! “We just wanna see yaa!
Shake That!” …

by Sandra Lemus, CalSERVES Program Coordinator

Life in the CalSERVES Office

Ah, the elusive office. Many in CalSERVES have heard about and visited this pristine space. Some come here every few weeks for meetings. Few know the reality of working in the office. Often, my fellow members at school sites ask me about my experience thus far in the office. Coming up with a suitable answer proves difficult because working in a setting like this is not so novel to me—most of my prior work experiences took place in an office setting, besides my term as a full-time mentor at Wright last year.

For this blog, I offered to write a piece on life in the office. In order to best articulate my feelings on this subject, I wrote a poem encapsulating my time here. I hope you enjoy it.

A Cube with a View 

My head bobs unconsciously to the 
cacophonic taps of fingers upon keyboards; 
our joints read the notes of an unseen composition, allegro. 
I devour another email, rich in its text, a signature like cupcake frosting. 

I blink; the resulting image is a mishmash of right angles, 
algorithmic in their precision. My cubicle is lined with interwoven threads 
of charcoal and peach, of granite quarries and southwestern dust. 

I sit, stare, and I forget other people exist here. 
Everywhere. My own vacuum of productivity. 
Then someone calls me. I text them. They fax me. I email them. 
We engage in the electric slide, the techno tango, 
making up the moves and songs as we go along. 

A child appears and people swarm like ducks to an open palm of breadcrumbs. 
My spreadsheets have replaced my students: I protect them, 
teach them new formulas, respond to error messages and data disagreements; 
cells tattle on each other, but with a click, everyone is friends again. 

I get up; the grey carpet is now crimson, a runway lined with adoring fans. 
Strutting to the kitchen, I wave and smile and pretend the fluorescent bulbs 
flash at me; coworkers scream my name as I pass by, asking for my autograph 
on a timesheet. A Starbucks mermaid is my Oscar trophy; 
my supervisor hands it to me and I tear up during the acceptance speech. 

It was once an enigma, a maze of plastic and frosted rectangles,
where the cogs of CalSERVES hid and hashed out. 
I often heard “the office” uttered as if it were an individual. 
“That’s what the office said.” “Let me ask the office.” 
However, I’ve infiltrated the inside and have come to spread 
the juicy gossip: behind that voice on the phone, 
behind those glossy glass doors, behind the privacy screens of cubicles— 
there is no false wizard, no other-worldly entity. 
There are people. Smiling. Answering questions. Laughing. 
Finalizing the fiscal. Besieging the budgetary. Caring. 
They are the instructions to our IKEA bed, 
the plumber to our leaky pipes, 
the heart to our tin man. 

by Patrick Link, CalSERVES Local VIP Leader

Loving Science at RL Stevens

3rd graders testing their parachutes.

The mentors and kids at RL Stevens LOVE our new KidzScience kits. It is easy for me because I just hand the kit to a mentor and I know they are well supplied. The mentors appreciate having the lesson plans to use as guides for leading and setting up activities.

We have had several classes use the Falling and Flying kit to make parachutes and build rockets. The students had a lot of fun testing their parachutes and racing them against paper clips without parachutes to see how parachutes help to slow objects as they fall. They also built rockets, working in teams to see which constructions worked best and helped their rockets fly the farthest.

With the help of the KidzScience kits, we have had a lot of success introducing our students to different scientific principles by using just one or two of the lessons.

by Lauren Alpert, Team Leader at RL Stevens Elementary

Happy Holidays from CalSERVES!

Here's wishing everyone a safe and happy holiday season! As you spend time with family and friends, take time to remember the many things in your life for which you are grateful. Enjoy peace and contentment.

Kids Love Dogs

Sadie and three of her biggest fans. These brothers all received awards at our
fitness assembly this week and they asked for Sadie to be included in their picture.

Bringing your dog to work every day may seems a little unconventional to some, but for me, it’ a dream come true. When the kids ask what a therapy dog is, I say “Her job is to just to make you happy.” Sadie is a one year old Catahoula mix that loves kids; one thing is for sure, the kids love her even more! Whether it’s the 3rd grader that spends his mornings, recess, and lunch time in our room visiting her, or the 6th grader that asks to take her for a walk when he’s feeling upset, her presence has made quite the difference here at Kawana.

When I visit Ms. Garcia's Kindergarten, she asks the students as I’m leaving the room, "Say goodbye to Ms. Williams." In perfect harmony the kindergarteners yell "Bye Sadie!!” If that isn’t proof that she’s doing her job, then I don’t know what is! 

by Jackie Williams, After School Team Leader at Kawana Elementary

Healthy Food for Families

Fresh produce from the Redwood Empire Food Bank.

Every Friday I go to the food bank and get hundreds of pounds of fruits and vegetables to give out to the families. This past Friday I got over 600 pounds of produce. I picked up 150 boxes of strawberries (1 per family), 200 pounds of potatoes, broccoli, brussel sprouts, and celery. In the past I have also gotten sweet potatoes, carrots, parsley, green onions, apples, oranges, asian pears, and more. Although I do this every Friday, the parents still ask me how much I am charging for the produce. The families are relentlessly shocked and grateful for the copious amounts of fruits and vegetables I provide.

This is by far one of the most rewarding things I have a chance to do. Giving healthy food for the families to put on the dinner table, and knowing that my students aren’t going to go hungry tonight- that’s all the thanks I need.

by Melissa Collins, VIP Fellow at Kawana Elementary School