STANWOOD — Meghan Lawrence believes some lessons are best learned through volunteering.
Volunteers learn to recognize the needs in their communities, work as a team, grow as leaders and appreciate what they have in their day-to-day lives that others do not.
Lawrence, a special education teacher at Port Susan Middle School, wanted to give students the chance to learn those lessons at a young age and find a love of volunteering that can carry on through high school, college and adulthood.
She started a Builders Club at the middle school this year. Builders Club is a branch of the Kiwanis, an international service organization that also has Key Club in High School and Circle K at the college level.
The club is all about teaching students leadership through serving others, Lawrence said. It is open to all students at the middle school.
Madison Moore, 12, is the club’s president. It’s a chance to combine her passion for serving people and her leadership skills, the seventh-grader said.
“I think that helping other people makes us all feel good and grateful for what we have,” she said.
There are about 19 students in the club, and they’ve become like a family, she said.
“We all get along really well,” Moore said. “We’re still trying to recruit as many people as we can.”
In its first few months, club members have collected more than 150 pairs of shoes for homeless students in the school district and sorted about 20,000 pounds of food for the Stanwood Camano Food Bank.
“My students in the club just have the best hearts and service skills,” Lawrence said. “A lot of them don’t have much themselves.”
Their next project is a food drive that kicks off May 26 and ends June 5. People can drop donations off at Port Susan Middle School, 7506 267th Place NW, during the school day.
Homeroom classes also are competing to bring in the most donations, and the winning class gets a root beer float party, Lawrence said.
Moving forward, she plans to continue the shoe and food drives along with adding new projects. Next year, she wants to work with club leaders on a gift card campaign to collect money and gift cards for low-income families so they can do some shopping before Christmas.
Though Kiwanis Club is an international organization, Lawrence wants to focus her students’ time and energy on Stanwood and Camano Island.
“We want to keep it local because these kids are from here and a lot of them will stay here,” she said. “This way they can really see the impact their service has.”
For more information about the club, students or parents can email Lawrence at mlawrence@stanwood.wednet.edu.
Kari Bray: 425-339-3439; kbray@heraldnet.com.
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