Sunshine on a Covid Day
Josie Mintken
Hello!
My name is Josie Mintken
And welcome to my booth!
Enjoy my presentation!
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What is my project?
MISSION
My mission throughout this project was to reach out to any seniors specifically isolated in their community. My aim was to get letters from youth and give them to seniors! In the end it had a wonderful result, and I am so pleased to share my journey with you!
INSPIRATION
My Grandmother passed away in November of 2020. I tried to stay in touch with her as much as possible, but it really made me realize how isolated everyone has been during this pandemic, especially senior residents.
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The Process
PLANNING AND PREPARATION
Having much appreciated help from my teacher, Lisa Lee, she and I reached out to the Wheat Ridge Community. The feedback and involvement of the community was amazing! After laying down my list of schools, and formulating a plan, I was ready to start the process of completing my project!
PERFECTING THE DETAILS
Although I had my mission defined, due to the restrictions of the pandemic it was very difficult to bring the parts of my project together. I was hoping to get letters or drawings from kids of over eight grades, from over three schools.
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1.
Step One
Communicating, planning, formulating
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Finding Schools
Recruitment
My first step was to find schools that were willing to help us meet our goal. We wanted to get letters/drawings from kids grades K-5 and 9-12. We reached out to many schools, including Stevens Elementary.
Communicating
After many emails, we finally got volunteers! It was absolutely amazing the amount of contribution we received. Now that we had our youth, it was time to talk to seniors!
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Senior Outreach
Community
The next step was to reach out to the seniors. We communicated with the Wheat Ridge Community if anyone had any family they would like to include for this project.
Feedback
Almost immediately after, we had numerous amount of feedback from all over the country describing how people had the perfect family member in mind for this project. We even had some international responses!
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Where we mailed letters:
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County SLigo, Ireland
Mexico
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Step Two
Time to work!
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Action!
After obtaining both a supply and a demand needed for my project, it was time to take action.
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The Process
Communicating
Mrs. Lee and I communicated with the teachers contributing to our project. I filmed and distributed an informational video describing the contents and info for the letters to schools involved.
Distributing
Teachers showed the video to students of almost all grade levels, then students made the content! We ended up with a stack of papers (including drawings, notes, and letters from elementary students).
Readjusting
After getting the material needed, we made a plan. This project was so much bigger and better than either of us predicted, so we started readjusting.
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Rethinking
We had so much more material than we ever could have hoped for! We readjusted; and took a more ‘community’ approach. We decided to share our wonderful collection to some local retirement homes, including our very own MorningStar Assisted Living & Memory Care of Wheat Ridge. We divided up our letters, including adding some more personal ones from Wheat Ridge High School Students, and we were ready to ship!
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What we sent:
And so much more!
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What we received:
And so much more!
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Kindness Brigade
MEMBERS AND FOLLOW-UP
Members are as follows;
Gideon, Ella, Mimi, Olivia, Grace, Kaiden, Yan, Allison, Erin, Beckett, October, Sam, myself, Sean, Brielle, and Ava.
We wrote letters to specific people, and got amazing responses! It was overall a huge success. And that was a wrap on my project!!
WHO ARE WE?
As I mentioned earlier, we wanted to give as much comfort to seniors as possible, so Mrs. Lee and I recruited the Kindness Ambassadors. A select group from our GT Program got together to write specialized letters to our seniors.
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Over 80 letters
With 100%
To over 35
OVERALL:
We ended up mailing
Happy senior citizen’s responses!
Different people world-wide
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We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.
-Winston Churchill
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“
A thank you:
Mrs. Lee!
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Thank you!
I hope this project has helped inspire you to do something beneficial for your community. Thank you so much for reading my slides and following me through this journey, and have a great night!
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