Glen Crest students learn about helping others
Sixth-grader Kelly Sisson is busy drawing valentine art on covered tables at The Meadows Glen Ellyn where senior residents will have a party later that evening.
“I like helping people out and it's fun to meet new friends,” she says. “I like coming here.”
Kelly and other students from Glen Crest Middle School in Glen Ellyn have been to The Meadows before as part a new club to involve junior high-age students in community service projects.
Craig Hofmann, a sixth-grade social studies teacher and coach at Glen Crest, started the club this fall, modeling it after the Key Club in high schools that are sponsored by local Kiwanis organizations. Hofmann plans a couple of projects a month that have allowed students to volunteer in such efforts as packing food for Feed My Starving Children, clearing brush in a forest preserve, visiting retirement and nursing homes, publicizing a community book drive and making valentines for veterans.
At The Meadows while students decorated for Valentine's Day, Hofmann walked around taking pictures and looking like a proud parent.
“I wanted the kids to get an idea of the responsibility but also the rewards of giving of time,” he said. “I think they feel good about what they've accomplished.”
The students' commitment to doing good recently was recognized when the Glen Glen Kiwanis presented the club with a charter in January designating it as an official middle school Key Club.
Cool to help
Eighth-grader Tyler Yam, whose brother is president of the Key Club at Glenbard South High School, said he already had tagged along with his brother and sister when they did volunteer work. Since joining the Glen Crest Builders, he has helped out at a celebration at his old elementary school.
“It was cool to be the one helping,” he said.
Fellow eighth-grader Michelle Loconte also had done volunteer work before as part of his church youth group and by helping special needs students at Glen Crest. When the Glen Crest Builders Club started, he joined.
“This is one of my favorite clubs at Glen Crest,” he said. “It gives me an opportunity to give back. People want to give back, but they don't know how.”
Hofmann said he was “blown away” when 70 kids attended the initial meeting. An average of 30 kids continue to show up when the group meets two or three times a month, he said.
“The nice thing about some of these activities is you get to do them with your friends,” Hofmann said. “I also think they've come to experience the true joy of service.”
Brother and sister Daniel and Pearl Opem worked together to hang hearts on the wall. Pearl, an eighth-grader, said she decided to join in the decorating after visiting The Meadows with her piano teacher.
“I realized it would be really fun to do, “ she said. “I love this place.”
Daniel, a sixth-grader, said one of his memorable experiences with the Builders Club was a visit to the DuPage Convalescent Center in Wheaton.
“We got to meet people and they told us stories about their lives,” he said.
Win-win experience
Rita Peckhart, sales and marketing director at The Meadows, said the Glen Crest students have visited the Glen Ellyn retirement home three times.
“After they came the first time, they were asking the teacher when are we coming back,” she said. “I think these intergenerational activities are a real learning experience for the kids.”
Seniors at The Meadows also volunteer to help sixth-graders with reading at Glen Crest, and some are pen pals with students in a local elementary school, Peckhart said.
Meadows resident Hazel Valentine, a volunteer in the Glen Crest reading program, said she was glad to see the students coming out for activities at the retirement home.
“I think it's a wonderful idea,” the former Girl Scout leader said. “I think people here need the contact with young people and I think the young people gain from it.”
Jennie Ritzner, another Meadows volunteer in the Glen Crest reading program, agreed that it was nice to see people “not my age.”
“They're warm and outgoing,” she said. “It's absolutely overwhelming.”