By AUBRIE GEORGE
Last week, dozens of eighth-grade students from DeMasi Middle School trekked through the woods at the Black Run Preserve off Kettle Run Road as they worked tirelessly to remove piles of old tires by the truckload and made sure the trail and surrounding woods were free of trash.
The students were on just one of several community service trips they could have taken that day as part of a school-wide effort on service learning.
Simultaneously, other eighth graders were at Voorhees Pediatric Hospital visiting with patients, the Masonic Home of New Jersey getting to know senior citizens, and in Philadelphia’s Logan Square where they handed out sandwiches, bagged lunches, and toiletries and clothing to the city’s homeless, project coordinator and eighth-grade teacher, Maureen Heenan, said.
The trips are part of an extensive learning system at DeMasi that teaches students about the significance of community service and gives them the lessons, experience and contacts they need to continue service outside of school and into the future.
The whole idea for the effort, Heenan said, came about two years ago after a discussion at a teacher in-service.
“We started talking about how we could introduce students to seeking out community service, becoming more civic-minded and discovering the responsibility that comes along with being part of a community,” Heenan said.
That year, the school held an expo, inviting local community organizations to come into the school, set up tables and talk to students about the volunteer and service opportunities available to them.
The following year, the effort was expanded with service field trips and another expo that included a motivational speaker.
This year, with the help of a $7,778 grant from the NJEA Frederick L. Hipp Foundation for Excellence in Education, teachers were able to enhance the lessons. Heenan collaborated with colleagues Linda Gallagher, Shira Kravitz, Joe Benedict, Lori Stanley, Dori Aughenbaugh, Sara Etsell and Susan Rossi to carry out the project.
Student committees met after school to draft descriptions of volunteer opportunities. The list was then distributed to all eighth-grade students to choose where to volunteer.
The students created a public service announcement for morning announcements targeted at classmates to promote volunteerism.
Students also collected information about local volunteer organizations and opportunities, which will be complied into a youth volunteer directory that will be available to the community.
The directory will include descriptions of the volunteer organizations with examples of the duties and activities they could perform.
The students are also in the middle of planning another service expo for this school year. Again, they’ll invite parents and volunteer organizations and will host a keynote speaker.
At the Black Run Preserve, students cleared the area of trash. The Evesham Municipal Utilities Authority supplied the students with gloves and garbage bags and offered to pick up the trash they collected after the trip, Heenan said.
The Evesham Police Department helped load and unload the students on and off the bus to keep students safe on Kettle Run Road.
The school district’s grounds workers helped, too, aiding students transport the old tires they collected to the road so that the township could pick them up and recycle them, Heenan said.
Ryan Vallen, and eighth grader who said he was having a great time on the trip, said he was learning important lessons at the same time.
“It’s teaching me that we need to keep our earth clean,” he said.
DeMasi Vice Principal Pat Bree was out in the woods with the students, supervising and helping them with the clean up.
“This is an awesome experience for the kids and I’m so proud of them,” Bree said. “They’ve helped not only support this, but they’ve also organized it and followed it through.”
Another eighth grader, Nate Gonzalez, was shocked by the amount of trash the students had been removing, particularly the piles of old tires they found.
“I learned that a lot of people dump things in the woods,” Nate said. “I didn’t know it was that bad.”
“And it’s polluting our earth,” eight grader Mike Leason added.
A pre-assessment of service awareness was given to students before they went out on their trips, Heenan said.
“We did a pre-survey to see what their experience was and to see how they feel about different aspects of society. Are you responsible to your society? Do you need to give back?” Heenan said.
The results of that survey will be compared to a post-assessment that will be given to students at the end of the project.
