Service Projects

By. Ashlyn Bynion and Ravya Kanth

It is a warm and cloudy afternoon and the Service Projects P.E.P is hard at work. With people murmuring in the background, you can see that many students are actively coloring or playing games with smiles on their faces.

What Service Projects Does

Service Projects is a creative and hands-on way to learn about the community and how to impact it in a positive way. In Service Projects, students learn about how to take care of themselves and others. There are multiple stations. Some stations are coloring, writing cards for others, and learning about SSD (Seattle Seeing Eye Dogs).

Students learn how to take care of themselves by relaxing when they are coloring and playing games. “I need to take care of myself before taking care of others,” a girl named Lorraine Zimmerman remarked. You can see she learned that she should do what she thinks, not what others think. When they are learning about the Service Dogs, writing cards for people in nursing homes, or creating posters for the Special Olympics, they are learning how to take care of others.

How Students’ and Teachers’ View Service Projects

Many students and teachers love this P.E.P. While making a Special Olympics poster, Rowan Geilpe mentioned, ``I think it is really inspiring that we are making posters of them because they don’t get as much appreciation as athletes who aren't disabled.” As you can see, this P.E.P. opens kids' eyes and shows them the positive impact of their kind actions. There are many teachers in this P.E.P who enjoy their job of teaching Service Projects. ”We thought that giving back was a very important thing in this community,’” Ms. Whye commented.

What Students’ Like About Service Projects

Have you wondered if the students in their P.E.P., Service Projects, actually like their P.E.P.? Many students noted that they enjoyed their P.E.P because they like being able to help others and hanging out with their friends. One student also added that they would rather do P.E.P. than I/E at the end of the day because in Service Projects they do fun activities, but in I/E they do more academic activities.

Reflections on Service Projects

Students would like to accomplish learning how to serve their community better and how to be a kinder person. Some kids knew some background information about this field, like knowing a little bit about the Service Dogs and some things about Service Projects. Following this, a student explained that possibly in the future, he could raise dogs to be Service Dogs and train them how to help others. Devi Sharda commented that Service Projects can definitely be a career. While making her poster, she included, “The people we are making this will have a brighter and better day.”