Santa Rosa Academy challenges students to give back
By Tommie Brown, Staff Writer It’s not unique news to hear that Santa Rosa Academy has a community service requirement for all students in...
http://www.menifee247.com/2019/09/santa-rosa-academy-challenges-students-to-give-back.html
By Tommie Brown, Staff Writer
It’s not unique news to hear that Santa Rosa Academy has a community service requirement for all students intending to graduate and receive a diploma. Like all other high schools within the surrounding districts, high school students acquire community service credits by donating their time to volunteering, clubs, or athletics.
However, at Santa Rosa Academy students are required to take a more hands-on approach in giving back to their communities in a meaningful way. From the beginning of Santa Rosa Academy’s creation, it was paramount to the founders that the community service within curriculum truly served others. This led to the creation of the Junior Class Service Projects.
Every year, the junior class of SRA is faced with the rewarding, yet daunting task of designing their completely original community service proposal. Students are encouraged to pick an organization, cause, or individual to help that is significant and personal to their own lives.
Rather than gather food or clothing for food banks and donation centers, or have guardians donate a lump sum of money to an organization, students are asked to come up with their own process of how they themselves will give back.
“Sometimes parents complain and ask what will stop students from asking grandma and grandpa to write a check out for some non-profit and call the project a day,” says Niki McMullen, SRA’s Academic Counselor and overseer of projects. “And my answer is always the same -- then that child greatly missed the entire point of this assignment, and that misuse of power will eventually show.”
Students’ projects within the 2019/2020 school year ranged from donating an entire playground, to fundraising for -- then personally teaching -- after school art classes for elementary students.
Amid the impactful work the students completed, one student’s project in particular fully encompassed the overall hope of what the projects should entail.
Claire Worthington, SRA junior class student, is the designer of the service project “One Heartbeat, Two Countries.” Being adopted from China into America, Worthington decided that the cause she held closest to her heart was to, in fact, give back to someone else’s.
Holt International Children’s Services is an organization that helps connect orphaned children around the world who come from incredible poverty in some of the toughest places, with adoptive parents. Holt is also the organization that linked both Worthington and her sister to their forever home in America.
An issue that Worthington held close to her is the fact that while agencies like Holt exist, there is a grave issue that looms over many children in China, which is congenital heart disease. Common in infants in the country, it is protocol to adoption agencies that babies with the disease must be surgically treated for the illness, or adoption is out of the question. These are surgeries that come at no low cost.
“I’ve always had a connection to Holt, since that’s the organization my mom used to find me,” said Worthington. “So when I knew I was going to be doing this project, I just thought what better of a way to give back to the community than through their hearts?”
On a mission to help give a child a second shot at life, Worthington set out with the goal to raise $3,000 to donate specifically to Holt International with the purpose of providing one heart surgery to a child in need.
Worthington personally created a heartwarming and personal video presentation, as well as written letters of explanation. Both sent out to family and friends, calling for any size donations to be made.
After a few less than lucrative attempts, Worthington used a “by mail” donation method that hit the nail on the head. More so than she ever expected, in fact. Rounding together her grand total, Worthington successfully collected $3,755 to donate to Holt International -- $755 over her goal amount.
“I wasn’t even sure I would make the goal I had,” laughed Worthington. “Three thousand seemed like so much. But making almost $1,000 over that was amazing to me. It truly showed me how much people want to be generous and want the chance to give back. It was humbling to be a part of that.”
After all the donations were gathered and finalized, and even after the project was submitted, Worthington found out via Holt International that her efforts manifested into a congenital heart disease surgery for one baby girl who happened to also be not only from China, but from the exact same province which Worthington was born.
“This was very personal to me and has now started to shape my ideas and plans of my own future,” said Worthington. “After realizing how important this was to me, I am strongly considering pursuing biomedical engineering to engineer hearts and things like that, all thanks to this project.”
And while Worthington notably excelled at the SRA project, she is not the only student who thrived within the assignment’s history.
Students have organized large scale events in motocross to raise funds for nonprofits. They have reached out to the community around them to help with homelessness, mental illness, and even giving back to members of their own student body.
“This project is not for a grade,” says McMullen. “That was a big decision Santa Rosa agreed upon. It is a graduation requirement, but this is not graded because that’s not the purpose of this. We want students to decide what they are passionate about and put time and effort into that.”
All projects were on display at SRA’s open house event, and though projects are not graded, those that meet all proposal requirements are voted on by administration. The top five students will then be brought to the board of directors to present their projects, and one student’s project will be picked to receive a $500 scholarship.
However, both students and staff of SRA believe it is important to express that the sole purpose of the project has minimal to no ties to personal gain, but rather the exact opposite.
“We are all just human beings,” said McMullen. “And being selfish is innate, it’s a part of who we are. But to be able to get teenagers to think outside of their own box, that’s greatness.”
It’s not unique news to hear that Santa Rosa Academy has a community service requirement for all students intending to graduate and receive a diploma. Like all other high schools within the surrounding districts, high school students acquire community service credits by donating their time to volunteering, clubs, or athletics.
However, at Santa Rosa Academy students are required to take a more hands-on approach in giving back to their communities in a meaningful way. From the beginning of Santa Rosa Academy’s creation, it was paramount to the founders that the community service within curriculum truly served others. This led to the creation of the Junior Class Service Projects.
Every year, the junior class of SRA is faced with the rewarding, yet daunting task of designing their completely original community service proposal. Students are encouraged to pick an organization, cause, or individual to help that is significant and personal to their own lives.
Rather than gather food or clothing for food banks and donation centers, or have guardians donate a lump sum of money to an organization, students are asked to come up with their own process of how they themselves will give back.
“Sometimes parents complain and ask what will stop students from asking grandma and grandpa to write a check out for some non-profit and call the project a day,” says Niki McMullen, SRA’s Academic Counselor and overseer of projects. “And my answer is always the same -- then that child greatly missed the entire point of this assignment, and that misuse of power will eventually show.”
Students’ projects within the 2019/2020 school year ranged from donating an entire playground, to fundraising for -- then personally teaching -- after school art classes for elementary students. Amid the impactful work the students completed, one student’s project in particular fully encompassed the overall hope of what the projects should entail.
Claire Worthington, SRA junior class student, is the designer of the service project “One Heartbeat, Two Countries.” Being adopted from China into America, Worthington decided that the cause she held closest to her heart was to, in fact, give back to someone else’s.
Holt International Children’s Services is an organization that helps connect orphaned children around the world who come from incredible poverty in some of the toughest places, with adoptive parents. Holt is also the organization that linked both Worthington and her sister to their forever home in America.
An issue that Worthington held close to her is the fact that while agencies like Holt exist, there is a grave issue that looms over many children in China, which is congenital heart disease. Common in infants in the country, it is protocol to adoption agencies that babies with the disease must be surgically treated for the illness, or adoption is out of the question. These are surgeries that come at no low cost.
“I’ve always had a connection to Holt, since that’s the organization my mom used to find me,” said Worthington. “So when I knew I was going to be doing this project, I just thought what better of a way to give back to the community than through their hearts?”
On a mission to help give a child a second shot at life, Worthington set out with the goal to raise $3,000 to donate specifically to Holt International with the purpose of providing one heart surgery to a child in need.
Worthington personally created a heartwarming and personal video presentation, as well as written letters of explanation. Both sent out to family and friends, calling for any size donations to be made.
After a few less than lucrative attempts, Worthington used a “by mail” donation method that hit the nail on the head. More so than she ever expected, in fact. Rounding together her grand total, Worthington successfully collected $3,755 to donate to Holt International -- $755 over her goal amount.
“I wasn’t even sure I would make the goal I had,” laughed Worthington. “Three thousand seemed like so much. But making almost $1,000 over that was amazing to me. It truly showed me how much people want to be generous and want the chance to give back. It was humbling to be a part of that.”
After all the donations were gathered and finalized, and even after the project was submitted, Worthington found out via Holt International that her efforts manifested into a congenital heart disease surgery for one baby girl who happened to also be not only from China, but from the exact same province which Worthington was born.
“This was very personal to me and has now started to shape my ideas and plans of my own future,” said Worthington. “After realizing how important this was to me, I am strongly considering pursuing biomedical engineering to engineer hearts and things like that, all thanks to this project.”
Students have organized large scale events in motocross to raise funds for nonprofits. They have reached out to the community around them to help with homelessness, mental illness, and even giving back to members of their own student body.
“This project is not for a grade,” says McMullen. “That was a big decision Santa Rosa agreed upon. It is a graduation requirement, but this is not graded because that’s not the purpose of this. We want students to decide what they are passionate about and put time and effort into that.”
All projects were on display at SRA’s open house event, and though projects are not graded, those that meet all proposal requirements are voted on by administration. The top five students will then be brought to the board of directors to present their projects, and one student’s project will be picked to receive a $500 scholarship.
However, both students and staff of SRA believe it is important to express that the sole purpose of the project has minimal to no ties to personal gain, but rather the exact opposite.
“We are all just human beings,” said McMullen. “And being selfish is innate, it’s a part of who we are. But to be able to get teenagers to think outside of their own box, that’s greatness.”
