FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
OCONOMOWOC, WI – June 5, 2018. Many schools offer volunteer opportunities for students to get involved with at their school. The Service Learning Club at Silver Lake Intermediate School (SLI) has taken their goodwill to the next level by reaching out to the community to help serve young patients at Rogers Memorial Hospital.
A group of middle school students supplied 36 boxes to the hospital, boxes filled with items used to distract and cope during their stay as a patient. These items include journals, small puzzles, activity/coloring books, card games, stress balls, silly putty, markers/crayons and Rubik’s cubes. To purchase these items, members of the club raised money by selling candy at a school dance, donations from SLI’s student council, and the 8th-grade students donated money during May for Mental Health Awareness month.
SLI fifth-grader Kendyl H. said, “You can be the change in someone's day. Hard work is worth it, and you can change the world one person at a time.”
Students collected shoe boxes then wrapped and decorated each one with inspirational and encouraging verses. The final step was packing each box with the engaging gifts. SLI Service Learning Club Adviser Lori Findlay stated, “The moment the kids saw all these boxes filled impacted the students. They were looking at all the boxes and realized that the patients at Rogers Memorial Hospital need something like this. The patients need to know people care about them and that even strangers want to do something to make their stay just a little easier.”
Tess K., an 8th-grade leader in the club, used this project as the vehicle to earn her Silver Award for Girl Scouts. She shared, “I think that this project will make their days a little better. It’s not going to change them in a day; people change slower than that. But my goal was to make them feel appreciated, wanted, and loved by someone they didn’t know.”
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Silver Lake Intermediate Service Learning Club
Front row (left to right): Kendyl H., Lily K., Tess K.
Middle row (left to right): Jenna G., Katie P., Maya K., Lori F., Sydney M., Elena K.
Back row (left to right): Audrey B., Lindsey S., Alyssa K.