Monthly Archives: April 2010

The tea was brewed. The fruit and cookies were out. The elementary students were eager. The only thing still needed to kick of this Seattle-style tea time were the guests of honor–the volunteers.

On Monday Communities In Schools of Seattle teamed up with students from Graham Hill Elementary to throw a Volunteer Appreciation Tea Time. The herb-infused event honored tutors from both the Reading Buddy and Math All-Stars programs who take time out of their busy lives to better those of their younger tea-drinking counterparts.

Janeal Stevens, program coordinator for Communities In Schools of Seattle, took the opportunity to present the crowd with a few words acknowledging the amazing dedication and heart of the volunteers.

States teacher Emily Miller, “Reaching these kids would not be possible without our fabulous volunteers and their unwavering dedication and positive support of our students’ learning.”

Again and again you hear the mission of Communities In Schools is about connecting community resources to schools to help young people be successful. But what does this mean?

Here is an example of how we fulfill our mission with the support of the community.

A Seattle board member received a message from a moving & storage company stating they had furniture, office supplies and PC equipment in usable condition but about to be disposed of. Could anyone benefit from this donation?

“We immediately contacted the company and learned that they had over 100 fully functioning computers to donate,” said Janeal Stevens, Seattle program coordinator. “We contacted Seattle Public Schools to inquire if they could use the computers and a unanimous YES was the response!”

But how to get them to the schools? Janeal then contacted a partner from the annual Stuff the Bus school supplies drive, TransGroup Worldwide Logistics who was eager once again to support our mission and offered free transportation of the computers to the schools.

With determination, a few e-mails, and the help of the community, Communities In Schools was able to provide 100 computers and monitors to computer labs in Queen Anne and McDonald Elementary Schools and Hamilton Middle School. All with no cost to the school district or to us.

Now that’s something that computes!

March sees a lot of activity for many of us. The plants start to get a little greener, daylight savings time helps kick away the long winter night blues, and the drama of March Madness storms into living rooms nation-wide.

But for students all across the Puyallup School District, March is also synonymous with charity. The third month signifies a whole string of activities around the area as local students take part in their annual March Gladness event.

March Gladness is a month-long event coordinated by Communities In Schools of Puyallup. The event instills both the need and the joy of giving in students, and it allows them to take an active part in activities held by many of the 32 schools located in the school district. This year was the fifth installment of March Gladness. And with thousands of students, from kindergarten to grade 12, participating in over 50 separate programs from 29 schools, this was the best one yet.

The benevolence of the Puyallup youth touched upon many issues, both local and global. Many schools went international by sending money and goods to foreign countries in need. Fruitland Elementary, for example, provided aid to victims of the Haiti earthquake by collecting 750 new or gently-used shoes in a shoe drive. Others, however, sought to better the local community around them, through food drives, toiletry collections, and teddy bear drives for local homeless children. Some even felt compelled to better their own surroundings by painting murals or cleaning up school campuses.

Fear not, sports fans; this year’s March Gladness wasn’t without a basketball matchup. In a popular event run by Ferrucci Junior High School, local police officers took on the school’s faculty in the Cops vs. Teachers Memorial Charity Basketball Game. The money raised benefited the Lakewood Police Independent Guild and the Pierce County Deputy Sheriff’s Independent Guild, in honor of fallen officers.

From penny collections to fitness classes, Communities In Schools of Puyallup’s March Gladness gives students in the district a chance to give back to their community and their world. “It has been a while since we brought a lot of schools together,” says Chelsea Jacobs, the affiliate’s AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer. “It was truly great to see.”

See a full list of the 2011 March Gladness events here…