Middle Schoolers Clean, Plant, Make Friends on Service Day

Middle School students and teachers organized and participated in the first annual Middle School Day of Service on April 20. The students visited personal care homes, cleaned up neighborhood parks, volunteered at food distribution centers, and worked with young children at area schools.

Many of the sites are among those that Penn Charter students visit regularly as part of the school's service learning program. For example, PC expanded its ongoing relationship with the Widener Memorial School for the disabled to include "Fun Day," which brought the entire sixth grade to Widener's campus for T-ball, bean bag relay and other games. Fun Day was a regular event at Widener until about five years ago.

"When I called Widener to ask if they could use some volunteers, they were so excited to revive this day," said Tom Rickards, chair of the religious studies department.

"We enjoyed spending time with the kids and thought it was a great experience," PC sixth grader Jared Karpf said.

"A lot of us didn't really know what to think," Sean Joseph said about arriving at Widener. "When we got there, they were just like us - they wanted to have fun."

At Kaysim Court and Ohana House, personal care homes in Germantown, Middle School students often spend time with the residents playing board games. On the Day of Service, they cleared debris and planted pansies in the yard.

Students planted mulberry, oak and crabapple trees, and spread mulch in McMichael Park in East Falls. They also spent time cleaning up Cloverly Park and Laurel Hill Cemetery. And at the Greene Street Friends School Tree Lab, where seedlings are grown and provided to community groups and residents, seventh graders dug in and moved bucket after bucket of fertile soil.

At Wissahickon Charter School, Northern Home, Taylor School and KenCrest, Penn Charter students interacted with young children with a variety of needs. They read books, played bingo, helped with math and writing, and sorted donations for an Earth Day event.

Students prepared and served food at Tindley Soup Kitchen on Broad Street, and packaged food at Aid for Friends and SHARE (Self-Help and Resource Exchange).

Afterwards, students gathered to share presentations about their service activities with each other, and to listen to Liz Scott, mother of Alex Scott, who died of cancer in 2004 after helping to raise a million dollars for cancer research through Alex's Lemonade Stand.

"The power of reaching out to make a difference is really tremendous," Liz Scott told the middle schoolers. "I see every day the great things that young people are doing."

Students then dedicated the day to Darryl J. Ford, director of the Middle School and Penn Charter's incoming head of school. The Dr. Darryl J. Ford Day of Service will be an annual event.

Middle schoolers ended the Day of Service with a lemonade stand; proceeds benefited Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation, which has raised more than $10 million to date.