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Grant Beach Neighborhood's Serve To Swim Program

Grant Beach Neighborhood Association is very excited and proud of a relatively new program being offered to Grant Beach Neighborhood youngsters. This program has an interesting beginning. It received its beginning funding from many downtown businesses.

NEXT EVENT is Saturday June 23, 2007
Meet in Grant Beach Park at 10:00 AM

If you have questions email the program's director, Rebekah Thomas rebekahthomas@mchsi.com

	In the summer of 2006, Pauletta (We call her Queen of the Pink Palace) put together a Babysitting class.
	The class was held at the Henderson Boys and Girls Club and taught by Miss Cheryl a B & G staffer.
	Dan Scott donated a swimming pool pass for each child completing the Baby-sitters training class. (Dan is an architect and developer downtown. He has made great changes in the face of downtown)
	A young teen who took the baby-sitter training class posted a thank you to Dan for the pool passes.
	Dan responded to the child and told his memories of swimming in Grant Beach Park as a youngster -way- back when Grant Beach had a HUGE pool.
	A second young teen posted a thank you as well.
	Another Grant Beach resident responded to Dan and told him he too remembered the huge pool.
	That was followed by another teen from the neighborhood posting that only rich kids got to swim because the pool passes cost too much for allot of the neighborhood kids.
	That was followed by a senior resident of the neighborhood offering to purchase $10 worth of pool passes for the kids in the neighborhood.
	Dan went to lunch thinking about the post from the local teen. He spoke with his friends at lunch. Upon his return from lunch he had secured funding to purchase several books of pool passes.
	A couple more people offered up donations as well.
	The suggestion was made that the kids could perform a small community service to earn a free pool pass.
	Then the idea took on a life of its own.
	Residents in and around Grant Beach began donating to the pool pass fund.
	Grant Beach Neighborhood Association began scrambling and putting together a program with which to distribute the pool passes while teaching the kids community service can be fun.
	A Kick-Off meeting for the new youth serve to swim program and picnic was planned for a few days later.
	Community Service projects for the kids were found and organized.
	Permissions slips, signup sheets, certificates for the kids to do community service etc were made and copies made.
	Food was gathered for the picnic
	Flyers were made and distributed by hand around the neighborhood
	Posters were made and posted around the neighborhood
	TV stations covered the beginning of this creative program
	The Kick-Off picnic was packed
	Families ate, played, learned about the new program, signed up, filled out permission sips, and went swimming
	For the rest of the summer (which was already half over) kids met regularly for a community service meting.
	The kids did several community service projects as a group such as: a car wash, trash pickup, mulch bagging, and more.
	Kids also did individual community service acts they found on their own such as: helping elderly neighbors with chores, mowing lawns for families who didn't have a mower, providing child care services, walking dogs for elderly neighbors, fixing bikes and skate boards for kids who didn't have tools and more

Ultimately, Grant Beach youngsters reached out and served their community in a variety of ways and then enjoyed swimming with their friends at the Grant Beach Park Pool.

Because the program started when summer was almost ended we have some pool passes left for starting the summer of 2007 with.

GOOD NEWS!!! On the evening of June 7th we found the PERFECT person to head this program up. She was raised with community service as a daily part of her life because her parents were in the Missions field over seas. As her daughter who is now in college was growing up she did the RIF program at Weaver, she coached some of Weaver's baseball teams, and last year she coached a basketball team. She is creative outgoing, connects well with both kids and parents. She is a dedicated and follow-through kind of lady. Her name is Rebecca T. She is very excited about this program and has big dreams of carrying it on beyond the summer.

She will meet with the kids weekly, will organize a weekly group community service project and encourage the kids to find individual projects as well. She will welcome anyone who wants to pitch in an help make this program a success. She will welcome ideas for community service projects and will need other adults to help supervise these group projects.

Let's all jump in and help make this program a continued success.

The Kick-Off for 2007 is scheduled for June 16, 2007 at 4:00 PM. (Right after the pet show)

2006 Photos: Kick Off - Balloon Fun - Water Bucket Fun - Water Hose Fun

The Grant Beach Neighborhood Betterment Association is a group of citizens working together to maintain and improve the quality of living in our area. We meet monthly on a regular basis to address neighborhood concerns, and encourage residents to start smaller neighborhood watch groups in their block. We believe that people should actively participate as citizens in a democracy and as neighbors in in a community. We are a group of citizens interested in working together to maintain and improve the living quality of our neighborhood, motivate the city to address our concerns, be a spawning ground for neighborhood watch programs and build a sense of community among us. Working together, there is little that cannot be done, working apart there is little that can be done.

Mission Statement: "Improving the quality of life in our neighborhood"

This website is simply a tool we use to help keep our neighbors connected to each other, to their neighborhood and to their great City of Springfield, Missouri. Please consider attending the monthly meeting. Potluck Dinner for the whole family and Free child care for the meeting

Grant Beach Neighborhood Association is now selling advertisement spots on this progressive website. Click for more information and pricing. We have a very special deal for Real Estate Agents that have homes for sale in the Grant Beach Neighborhood. It is our intention to replace the generic banner ads with all local advertisers as soon as possible.

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