My EPL Project

Vision: To help improve the quality of life by showing others we care.

Importance of Project: It is very important to show everyone that we care because one act of kindness can be the greatest contribution to society. There is not just one community service project that can improve the quality of life so we designed a project for every month.

Project Goals/Timeline/Budget: Our project goal is to place a smile on someone's face. This project has already begun and is not expected to end. The greatest things are usually priceless but we will probably need funding for our project starting the month of December.

Our project timeline:

October 14- Included in "The Kid's Guide to Service Learning Projects" there was a project titled "Adopt-A-Grandfriend." We used this project and made it our own. There are 49 cadets in the battalion of Fairfield Central High School's JROTC program. Each cadet adopted a grandfriend of no relation and spent quality time with them. After there visitations, we received letters saying that the elders really enjoyed our company, our passion to be great citizens, and our love for humanity. With these letters, we knew we made a difference which gave us ideas for our next project.

November- During the entire month of November we are having a can food drive. This food supply combined with other nonperisable items will be used to provide Thanksgiving baskets for the unfortunate in the communities of Ridgeway and Winnsboro. Everyone has been asked to bring as many items as they can and the senior army instructor along with a few others have volunteered to deliver these baskets during fall break.

December- We spoke with Kara O'neal, the director at a children's home in Columbia, SC. Ms. O'neal stated that we are not able to interact with the children in any way but we are more than welcome to wrap Christmas gifts for them during our winter break. We have decided to not only help to wrap the gifts but also to buy some gifts. We are not looking for praise for our work and the children may never know who gave them gifts but we find it to be a way of improving the quality of life for them by giving them a Merry Christmas.

January- We are having a coat drive in the Walmart parking lot of Winnsboro, SC. We will advertise this widely among the community with hopes of great participation. The coats will be given to the homeless people in local and neighboring communities. ---As we give warmth through the use of coats, we also show the warmth of our love.

January through May-- we are designing a mentorship program that will help middle school students transition from middle to high school. Many students at my high school are being retained in the ninth grade because the work load is too heavy. We believe that if we prepare them while they are middle school students, they will do exceedingly well in high school.

Everyday we are continuously designing projects to better our community.The community volunteers are Mary Lynn Kinley, FC BETA Club, JROTC Mighty Griffin Battalion, community leaders, and The GAP Choir. We have hopes that the community involvement will become stronger and grow as our projects continue to prosper.