USA Service Projects for Students
The Idea Generator has found projects from past Make A Difference Days
to help you brainstorm projects for your school. Community centers,
parks,libraries, homeless shelters, hospitals and schools are all places
where students can make a difference. When considering service
activities with agencies, include their representatives in the planning
stages.
CLEAN SCHOOL GROUNDS
Students in Action and a teacher from Woonsocket High School in Rhode
Island raked leaves, planted flowers and cleaned up around the school.
GIVE ART
Arizona second-graders at Apache Elementary made paper Kachina dolls for
residents of Westview Healthcare Center.
GIVE A GROWING GIFT
Harrell High School and Community Friends in Texas got three local
Mexican restaurants to save avocado seeds, which they planted and handed
out to nursing home residents.
BAKE COOKIES
In Kintnersville, Pa., Palisades High School’s “Kids for Kindness” baked
more than 200 dozen cookies to be shipped to U.S. troops in Saudi
Arabia, Kuwait and Egypt.
DELIVER CARDS
In Lower Burrell, Pa., Bon Air Elementary School Student Council made
cards and chocolate lollipops and delivered them to seniors at a
high-rise.
ENABLE HANDICAPPED ACCESS
About 1,000 students and staffers of New York’s Gouverneur Central
School raised $3,300 for a swimming pool access ramp for senior and
disabled swimmers.
SCHOOL-TO-SCHOOL
An an Arkansas district where 25 percent of students
live in public housing, 11th- and 12th-graders in North Little Rock High
School’s Octagon Club rallied the community to donate 1,000-plus
clothing items to The Care Closet at Central Elementary School, where
needy students and their siblings can get free clothes.
PUT KNOWLEDGE TO WORK
Teens in Betty Magee’s Spanish II class at Mendenhall High School, in
Mississippi, spent the day teaching employees of a local women’s shelter
how to help a victim of domestic violence who can’t speak English. They
presented the employees with with a class-made video and audiotape
packet for future reference. Fred Davis, 16, gave up his lunch break at
his nearby job at a grocery store to help: “We came together so they can
help others.”
RAISE AWARENESS
Hibbing High School’s SADD raised $300 for a drunken-driving victim’s
family in a “Powderpuff” football game in Minnesota.
DO A WALK
At Coventry High School in Rhode Island, 30 National Honor Society
seniors raised $500 in a walk-a-thon for the American Cancer Society.
START A COLLECTION
E.P. Hubbell School in Connecticut collected
hundreds of personal-care and household items for four shelters.
VISIT SENIORS
Hot Springs High School’s Diamonds in the Rough — a culture and service
group — visited nursing home residents in Arkansas and gave them
decorated pumpkins.
COLLECT PENNIES
Arbor Elementary School in Piscataway, N.J., collected $220 in pennies
to help a financially pressed family with newborn quadruplets.
GET THE WORD OUT
Forestville Central School, in New York, and the community of Dunkirk
rallied 350 volunteers in a fund-raiser for a student in need of a
wheelchair. They also painted, raked and cleaned for seniors and spruced
up the town.
TEACHERS SHOW THE WAY
Five students and 29 teachers from West Woodland Hills Junior High
School in Swissvale, Pa., rehabilitated a four-unit row house.
SHARE GENERATIONS
Students from the Tuscarora Indian School on the Tuscarora Reservation
in New York raked leaves and visited with community elderly.
TEAM UP WITH A NONPROFIT
Newark, Ohio, middle and high school students from Youth Engaged in
Service, with the Mental Health Association of Licking County, held a
party for 252 needy kids.
BRING STAFF AND STUDENTS TOGETHER
Students, faculty and staff members from King’s College in Pennsylvania
participated in 13 projects, including raising funds for Make-a-Wish
Foundation, visiting pediatric wards, and collecting blankets for the
homeless.
BE A HERO
Students at Oak Forest Elementary School in Houston, many of them
needy, set up a “Heroes R Us” store stocked with their own possessions.
They gave away more than 600 toys and books to 150 needy children,
manybrought from shelters and churches. (be sure and visit My Hero site
at our ethics web sites for kids)
DO THE MATH
Fifty seventh- and eighth-graders at The Most Precious Blood School
in Brooklyn, N.Y., raised nearly $1,000 for the homeless and a
dialysis patient by selling 300 cookie cartons and auctioning off 13
decorated goody baskets.
INCLUDE MENTORING
Georgia Military College volunteers — 300 cadets in
sixth grade through junior college — cleaned a lakeside park, served
meals to veterans, collected socks and food for the needy and mentored
at-risk students.
USE BOOK POWER
In Indiana, the Madison Heights High School Latin Club collected 500
children’s books to be earned by elementary school students as rewards
for good grades, attendance and acts of kindness.
START A HOSPITAL LIBRARY
Fifteen Lakewood High School marketing students in New Jersey collected
500 books for a hospital pediatric unit, Head Start program and kids
with cancer.
LOVE ANIMALS
Felton Middle School seventh-graders treated local humane
society pets to new collars, toys, shampoos and walks; and gave 100
pounds of dog food with $330 earned pumping gas.
– USA Weekend