Maple Road School students learning community service one project at a time

| 13 Nov 2018 | 03:11

WEST MILFORD – Students at the Maple Road Elementary School are learning how they can contribute to the community by doing just one project a year.
In October, seven sixth grade students in the Youth Act Club made bracelets for soldiers overseas.
This month, first grade students are coloring placemats for senior citizens for the Thanksgiving holiday.
The club is sponsored by the school’s Parent Teacher Organization and allows students in each grade level to spend one day after school in a month to take part in a community service activity, Club Advisor Michele Kaminskyj said.
“(The program) has been going really well,” Kaminskyj said Tuesday. “We have been able to do seven different activities helping local and state-level charities.”
Kaminskyj said that the program is in its fourth year and gives students in each grade level a single project during one of seven months in the school year.
Students attend one after school meeting for about an hour during the month for their grade and complete an appropriate level project for community service.
Among the beneficiaries of the projects, senior citizens in local nursing homes, children undergoing cancer treatments in the hospital, and veterans, among others.
“We have a variety of activities,” she said.
Kaminskyj hopes the kids learn that they can do something, even on their own, that can serve others and that they can incorporate such activities into their lives, fostering a habit of community service.
The most recent project from October generated seven bracelets for soldiers that will be sent to Operation Gratitude, who will send them to troops overseas.
“It takes the kids 45 minutes (of the hour time) to learn how to make one,” she said.
Kaminskyj said she works with a teacher and a helper during the sessions.
She said the kids that participate year after year are learning about different needs in the community and different ways they can help meet those needs.
“They are learning one way to help out and if they want to do it on their own (later), they can,” she said. “You don’t have to wait until you are an adult to help out.”