Youth Service Program How It All Started
Below is a brief history of Grant Beach Neighborhood's Youth Community Serbvice Program. It is wonderful how one small kind deed can lead to another and another, mushrooming into something bigger. Grant Beach Neighborhood Association encourages youth of all ages to get involved with community service projects. It is never too early to teach children the value of giving back to their community. Doing good deeds is contagious, so encourage a child to do one today by setting a good example and doing one yourself.
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- In the summer of 2006, Pauletta put together a Babysitting class for young teens in the neighborhood.
- 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, instead of the one it has now.
- 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 kids met regularly for a community service meting and performed acts of community service.
- 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
From that beginning in the summer of 2006, the program has moved forward, it is grown and changed and is constantly adpting to match the needs of the youth involved and the neighborhood. 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.
Return to the Main Page for the Youth Community Service Program