Deal 8th grade community service project

[Anonymous]

My 8th grader is convinced that to pass 8th grade, she has to found a soup kitchen, by herself, tonight. That probably isn't right. She's also convinced that for this so-called community service project, she can't do anything actually helpful, like volunteer for an existing soup kitchen. It sounds like they're trying to transform "community service" into "individual leadership"; I supposed that's the American way, but it's pretty confusing. And I can't believe they actually want all their 8th graders to just head downtown to help the homeless directly, individually, without any supervision or support.

I can't find any information on the Deal web site, or in the newsletter. Does anyone know what's going on here?

[Anonymous]

I want to be clear my experience was pre-covid, so who the heck knows how relevant, but I wanted to allay some of your concerns.

Two years ago (pre covid) the way it was presented to parents (and there was a parent meeting about it), was that they didn't want kids to just go volunteer for a few hours, but wanted it to be a project that was designed and implemented.

My kid partnered with a couple of friends and had a bake sale and donated proceeds to the animal shelter, for example. I would find it hard to believe that requirements are harder/stricter now, during covid.

The school (again two years ago) formed cohorts of kids who met regularly to plan and develop their plans. So this group all wanted to help animals, this group wanted to help homeless, this group wanted to help the ocean, etc. The kids worked independently and with peer feedback to refine their ideas. It took a few months to plan it all out.

So again, I don't think it could possibly be more involved than that (though stranger things have happened in DCPS).

[Anonymous]

Thank you, this was very reassuring!

[Anonymous]

Why holding a bake sale and giving the money to an animal shelter is better than volunteering at an animal shelter is beyond me.

OP, maybe your kid can get a group of kids together to pick up trash in a park. Not too difficult to organize and definitely helpful! Ward 8 Woods, Anacostia Watershed Society, or Friends of Rock Creek Park are among the groups that might be willing to supervise/verify if that is needed; otherwise, just take some pics of them with the bags of trash they picked up and call it a day!

[Anonymous]

The details of the project change from year to year but it is a long-term project that happens over many weeks with school support so don't worry about having to get anything done on a short term basis. One significant goal is to get the kids to be active participants in identifying a need in their own community, which is why something like volunteering through an existing structured program is discouraged. I recall one year they touted a project that overhauled the Deal lost and found as an ideal. Another year it was a letter writing campaign to add a stop sign at a corner near the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why holding a bake sale and giving the money to an animal shelter is better than volunteering at an animal shelter is beyond me.

OP, maybe your kid can get a group of kids together to pick up trash in a park. Not too difficult to organize and definitely helpful! Ward 8 Woods, Anacostia Watershed Society, or Friends of Rock Creek Park are among the groups that might be willing to supervise/verify if that is needed; otherwise, just take some pics of them with the bags of trash they picked up and call it a day!

I would be super careful w trash pickup - there is a ton of human feces, condoms, possibility of syringes in those parks and woods..probably bodies too. maybe a street local neighborhood one focused on gum wrappers, with proper equipment.