Student Led Service Projects
On March 8 The Rotary Club of Bracebridge-Muskoka Lakes was pleased to present 5 groups of students from Mr. Marty Scarlett and Ms. Forsyth’s classes at St. Dom’s SS with $500 each for their student-led projects.
We had 15 applications in total from St. Dom’s and our committee had the difficult task of picking only 5 projects. The successful projects were:
"Project Memory” submitted by Avery Moffat and Mary Bernais, this project involves building “Memory Boxes” for people suffering from Alzheimer’s and dementia, the small hinged boxes will be used for people to store important keepsakes in and will be engraved with a message on the inside of the box.
“Project K.I.N.D.” was submitted by Dolan Boese and Nolan Dewetering and a similar project “Box of Fun” submitted by Austin Milburn and Robert Sheldrick were asked to work together to create wooden boxes and fill them with items for children at Sick Kids Hospital. Items could include puzzles, colouring books, crayons, toys, books etc.
“DOM Cares for Cats and the OSPCA” Students from Ms. Forsyth’s iPeace group submitted a project to attend the OSPCA a couple of times over this semester to bathe, care for, walk and play with the animals. They will use the funding to purchase items that are needed for the animals such as food, litter, blankets etc.
Ms. Forsyth’s HSE4M students submitted a proposal for “Art Therapy for Residents and Students” The students plan to create “personal interest art pieces” for residents at The Pines. The students plan to work with a staff member at The Pines to learn more about some of the residents and also work with students in art classes at St. Dom’s to use this information to create works of art for each resident. The students will later organize a “Reunion Presentation” where students will visit The Pines and meet with the resident for whom they have created the artwork.
Mr. Scarlett’s Green Industries class proposed “S.E.E.D.S – Students Empowering & Exemplifying Donation to Society” The students will take hundreds of discarded plastic containers from Progressive Waste Depot, used metal eaves troughs from the dump, and used skids from the commercial businesses and turn the garbage into “repurposed urban gardens”. The students will “pay it forward” through 3 community events. First, they will visit a group of 30-40 at The Pines and plant seedlings with them. They will leave the newly planted gardens with the residents. Second, they will visit Community Living and plant gardens with staff and residents, again leaving the gardens with them. Finally, they will hold an event on the May long weekend at Home Depot Garden Centre in Bracebridge, they will sell any remaining recycled urban gardens and donate any funds to Manna Foodbank, Interval House and Salvation Army.
We, in the Rotary Club of Bracebridge-Muskoka Lakes, applaud the efforts of the students and look forward to seeing these projects unfold in our community and we look forward to seeing more student-led projects come from all of our local schools in the future.
