Names: Amalia Ahn, Brianna Osorio, Tamani Suliman
Coach: Ms.Howard
Community Project
Virtual
Showcase
Silver Spring International Middle School
Middle Years Programme
8th Grade Community Project
My Topic
What need/issue did you focus on for your Community?
For the community project our group focused on the issue of kids being unable to have lots of toys or have enough money to spend on toys. We decided to solve this problem by hosting a toy drive. We would collect toys from our neighborhoods and SSIMS. Then we would send them to Wider Circle. Which is an organization that will later distribute them to kids.
What community did you focus on for your Community Project?
For the community project our group focused on all of the Silver Spring community in general. Due to the fact that each group member lives in a different area. We didn’t limit ourselves to only the SSIMS community. We planned to reach out to different people.
Guiding Question
Criterion A (i): define a highly challenging goal to address a need within a community, based on personal interests
My project connects to the Global Context Fairness and Development because we are able to communicate and have a relationship with the community around us and sharing resources with other people such as the toys we donated. Also we want to make sure everyone can have a child who is happy with a toy in there hand to spread equal access opportunities to toys for children.
Guiding Question:
How can I create a positive impact or change for A Wider Circle by donating toys for kids
Criterion A- Evidence
Criterion A (i): define a highly challenging goal to address a need within a community, based on personal interests
These are several entries from our Process Journal. We collected new information their. We also took notes of important dates and tasks that needs to be completed.
Proposal for Action
Criterion B (i): develop a proposal for actin to serve the need in the community
Criterion B : Evidence
Criterion B (ii): plan and record the development process of the project
Criterion B (iii): demonstrate self-management skills
This is our first process journal entry. It was during the first steps of the project where we were brainstorming ideas.
This is a process journal entry that was towards the middle of the project. We were reflecting on our ATL skills.
This was our final actions in the Proposal for Action. These were the last steps to be completed for the project.
Communication & Social Skills
Criterion C (iii) demonstrate communication and social skills
Questions for students who were in a group
Throughout the the project our group stayed in touch by using a variety of communication tools. We often do duo calls, voice calls, text messages, zoom meetings, and emails. I think overall as a group we were able to to handle conflicts and obstacles because we first identify the issue then we calmly come together and discuss any possible solution in a respectable manner. Along with hearing everyone’s opinions. If an issue happens to rise or if there is a need for an immediate discussion we would usually email our coach to schedule a meeting, even if it was outside of coaching sessions. For the project, we definitely communicated with people that are outside of MCPS. Since we decided to do toy donations it was necessary for us to get in touch with people from our communities. We went out of our way to send announcements and meet people to collect the donations.
Taking Action!
criterion C (i) demonstrate service as action as a result of the project
This is when we picked up the toy donations box at SSIMS. There were 24 separate toys that were books, stuffies, board games, and baby toys.Thank you to everyone who donated!!!
These were the donations I got from going around my parent´s neighborhoods. There were a lot of board games, legos, stuffies, small toys, toy kitchen, kids bike, etc.
These are the donations I got from my mom’s neighborhood. I was sorting through the donations to see what was in good condition to donate.
This is the box of toy donations from Tamani’s neighborhood. It’s mostly filled with teddy bears and action figures
Thinking Skills
Criterion C (ii) demonstrate thinking skills
criterion D (i) evaluate the quality of the service as action against the proposal
An issue our group faced in this project was deciding on the school donations drop-off dates. We had a couple of arguments on which dates worked best. We had to change our decisions a couple of times because we were waiting for admin approval. I strongly believe that my group was able to complete every actions we planned to take in our Proposal for Action. However, in many of them there were some delays. While some tasks we easy to completer. Others took a lot of time and discussions. As a group, we did answer our guiding question. Our purpose for this project was to provide kids with some happiness. We wanted to give out toys so that kids are able to smile again considering how this past year has been. The whole project revolved around this idea because we understood that many are suffering from this pandemic. A lot of families are struggling to provide food on the table. Let alone buying toys for kids. We know giving out toys is not much compared to our previous idea giving out food. However, it still creates a positive impact on both children and adults; which is our end goal.
Reflection
Criterion D (ii): reflect on how completing the project has extended their knowledge and understanding of service learning
Questions to Answer
I learned that there are a lot of people around my community and both of my neighborhoods who wanted to help our project and wanted to help kids have a smile on their face. Every time that I picked up donations it made me excited to know there are people who really enjoy helping people out.
Community service is important because it gives people a chance to help out others. It is fun to help your community and also to give to your community because there is always someone in need. When you give to others it helps them and also helps you by feeling accomplished.
I do think that our project was successful because donating anything is successful, it can be a big help. We were able to pull through with this project and get enough donations to fill a large wagon. A Wider Circle, an organization can give these toys to families in need.
AMALIA AHN
Reflection
Criterion D (ii): reflect on how completing the project has extended their knowledge and understanding of service learning
Questions to Answer
I learned that even though we are in a global pandemic, member of my community are thinking of many different ways to stay active and stay connected. I was surprised when I saw the support I got from my community when doing this project. Many of them were people I have never met before. When collecting donations I listened to them talk about why they are donating and I really enjoyed hearing their stories. This gave me a whole different perspective on community service
I believe that community service is important because it gives us the opportunity to provide various services to those in need. It enables us to become active members of society and create a positive impact on the community. It also helps us have awareness of what’s going on in our communities and it helps us gain many necessary life skills.
Yes, I do think this was successful because even though we did not set a specific method to measure the success of the project we were able to collect more toys than we had anticipated. I received 7 big bags full of toys. I honestly believe that even if we were only able to donate 1 toy we still proved that we are willing to be active in our community.
TAMANI SULIMAN
Approaches to Learning Skills Reflection
Criterion D (iii): reflect on their development of ATL skills
Questions to Answer
We would say that completing the Community Project helped us develop our Self-management skills because we needed to make times for the group to meet together and talk about the project. It also helped us not procrastinate because we wanted to try to get it done on time and finish it as quickly as possible.
We think that completing the Community Project helped us develop our Thinking Skills because we needed to be more focused and take one step at a time to fully understand and process the information that was given to us.
We think out of all the ATL skills this is probably one we developed the most over the course of the Community Project because we had to advocate for ourselves and ask others for help or ask questions to anyone that we needed an answer from and before this we would have a harder time communicating with others for help and for answers.
Completing the Community Project has helped us develop our reflection skills because we have needed to keep track of what we are doing and what needs to be done through out the Community Project and that has helped us with our reflection skills because then we can evaluate our work for improvement and it reminds us what we might have been feeling or how our thoughts have been going throughout the completion of this project. we can see through another lens and tell what our strengths and areas of growth are.