Love Day!

Sean and Michael getting Love cards ready for students to write love notes to important people in their lives next Wednesday in Town Hall.  We also have our gift card drive for our homeless going on until February 14.  Spread the love, everyone!!!

Hot Chocolate for Sale

We made $99.15 this morning selling hot chocolate.  Thanks to everyone that helped!  Woohoo!!!

Our President Speaking at the 8th Grade Assembly

Go Michael!!!

Hot Coco Wednsedays

The club intends to sell hot chocolate every Wednesday morning while it's still chilly out.  Thanks for your support!

Cheers!

Our president, Michael, with other dedicated club members selling hot coco on a cold winter morning.

Community Service Club Activists!

Kyle representing CSC at the LA Women's March in January.  Great job Kyle!!!

Mr. Valerio was there too!

Hot Coco Sales are sweet!

We've been celebrating the cool weather by selling hot chocolate once a week.  We're trying to reach our $20,000 fundraising goal and could use every penny.  Get your hot chocolate for $2 every Wednesday morning before school.  Money goes to local and global charities.  Thanks!

WE Speaker Megan Henning Visits Paul Revere

Thanks to the amazing Megan from WE, who inspired us yesterday morning. Paul Reveres Community Service Club, now has a new idea with lots of potential and includes fun and friendly competition. Club members enjoyed watching videos that included stories about what WE Day is and how it became such a huge non profit. She even went a step further and told us stories about her life, and how when she was our age she was scared to do certain things. She used to hate going to sleepovers but then loved them when her mom made her go. She told us about her love for the Green Bay Packers and how she was born in Wisconsin, and told us about other places she used to live in.  It was fun listening to her story.  Check out her bio below.

SOCKTOBER

This year we held our first annual sock drive called Socktober.  We collected new socks, which were donated to homeless families at Upward Bound House.  Looking forward to doing it again next year!  Thanks to all the amazing people who donated!

Homeroom

Just a picture of our homeroom with our new t-shirts.  Like em?  We love 'em! Btw, this picture was taken before Guillermo and Arya joined us.

Operation Gratitude 2016

Our annual candy drive for Operation Gratitude was a record breaker.  We broke our previous record of 460 lbs collected this year and collected a whopping 600 lbs of candy!!!  Candy was shipped to our service members over seas through the Operation Gratitude organization as a thank you for their service.  This is a program we participate in via Pacific Palisades Pediatric Dentistry (PPPD).  For every pound of candy we collect PPPD gives us $1.  So that's $600 towards our fundraising goal of $20,000, which will go to charity.  Thank you to all who donated their halloween candy.  Oh, and we made this a raffle as well.  For every cup of candy donated students received one raffle ticket.  We raffled gift cards from Starbucks and AMC.

Special thanks to Ms. Levy and Mrs. Gardner for picking up the candy from Revere and delivering it to PPPD every day!  

Smile Project 2016

Here we are celebrating World Smile Day again by asking people what makes them smile.  Hopefully, we were able to put some smiles on people's faces.

Button Sale was a HUGE success!

Our first fundraiser of the year was our now annual button sale.  A few years ago we created a Donors Choose account and asked for a button machine.  The kind people out there in Donors Choose land came through and we got the button machine.  This year we raised in just over $1,400.  Seems like a lot, but just a drop in the bucket of reaching our 2016-2017 fundraising goal of $20,00,,,yes, $20,000.  Aye carrumba!  We're on our way though.

WE Day

Hello everyone out there!

Well, it's been a while since we've posted anything and we've done sooooo much over the past year.  I'll try to recap a few things we've done.

Last year, we raised over $800 by selling buttons that we donated to an organization called Free The Children.  That money went to clean water projects in Haiti and earned us some tickets to attend WE Day at the Forum in Inglewood.  It was a great day.  We got to hear people talk about all the amazing things they're doing to help people.  Demi Lavato and Selena Gomez were among the many people performing and speaking.  We hope to raise even more money money this year for various causes to earn our tickets to this year's WE Day.  Below is our group picture and the link for more info on WE Day.

https://www.we.org/we-day/

At the end of the year we raised $2,500, which we gave to 3 charities that everybody voted on.  The 3 charities were:

1. Pug Nation LA - Pug Nation rescues pugs and finds loving and caring homes for them.  www.pugnationla.org

2. Super Lemonade Brothers - This charity was founded by one of our own, Sean Botansky, who lost a friend to cancer and while visiting him the hospital got the idea to make the lives of children in hospitals a little more enjoyable by donating new toys.  

3. NKLA (Best Friends Animal Society) - NKLA (No-Kill Los Angeles) is an initiative led by Best Friends Animal Society, bringing together passionate individuals, city shelters and an entire coalition of animal welfare organizations to end the killing of homeless pets in L.A. city shelters by the year 2017. nkla.org.

That was just a quick recap of last school year.  

Thanks to everyone who supported us and for making it a great year!

Cheers!

Our holiday clothing and supplies drive flyer for S. P. Y. is under way.  Please see the attached flyer for items needed.  Thanks for all your help!

Community Service Club. 

Helper Opportunities

Our newest program, Community Service Club Helpers, is underway.  The program is designed to connect teachers and other staff who need a hand with certain projects to with students who are willing to help, at the same time it gives our club members an opportunity to help and earn community service hours. 

Below is a list of ongoing help that teachers and other staff members need.  Students, please remember to fill out the community service forms available on the school's website or from Mr. Valerio.  Have the teacher/staff member sign the forms, otherwise you will not get credit towards your community service hours.

Please contact Mr. Valerio at ruben.valerio@lausd.net or 310-917-4821 with any questions.

Ms. Faraone, Room G2
During nutrition every Thursday
Needs help cleaning wiping tables and seats, sweeping floor, etc.
You will receive 15 minutes towards community service hours.

Ms. Goldman (Nurse), Health Office
Anytime during lunch or nutrition
Needs help making ice packs, improving bulletin boards, stamping envelopes, etc.
15 minutes during nutrition and 30 minutes during lunch towards community service hours.
(Please note, Ms. Goldman is not on campus on Thursdays)

 

Operation Gratitude

We participated in Operation Gratitude the week of November 3-7 with Pacific Palisades Pediatric Dentistry.  Our club collected over 300 lbs of halloween candy, which Pacific Palisades Pediatric Dentistry gave us $1 for each pound collected.  Candy was shipped to troops overseas to show we all care about them and appreciate all their efforts and sacrifices.  Thanks to all the students who brought their left over Halloween candy!  We raffled off Starbuck's and iTunes gift cards, which were donated by a very generous parent, a kind and committed student and an awesome teacher.  Thanks Rachel, Maya and Ms. Asahina!!!

Club Raises Money and Walks in AIDS Walk LA 2014

Great weather, surrounded by amazing people, exercising for a great cause.  What a great way to spend a beautiful October afternoon.  Some club members and parents walked in this year's AIDS Walk. This is the second year in a row we've participated.  This year we raised $1,290.  Go team!  It was a great event, as usual, and we look forward to keeping the new tradition going next year. 

Diane is showing off one of the 100 red ribbons Mel and her mom Lillian made the night before to hand out to people at the walk. 

3 of several club all-stars getting ready.  

Ms. Koboashi and Mr. Valerio, club advisors, representing!

Clothing drive for S.P.Y.

The club is collecting items for Safe Place for Youth (S.P.Y.).  Donations can be dropped of  to Mr. Valerio in the Counseling Office.  Click clink for more info on S.P.Y.  So excited to be able help this amazing organization.  safeplaceforyouth.org.

Happy International Peace Day!

All last week, our amazing members sold Peace Grams during lunch.  Students purchased Peace Grams for friends and wrote messages of peace on them.  On Monday, we delivered all the Peace Grams (which were in the shape of dove) that included a couple of pieces of chocolate to Homerooms.  It was successful event and hope that, if at least for one day, students contemplated how good if feels to send peace.  Peace out!

Intro

After a successful inaugural year, where Paul Revere Community Service Club members walked in and raised $1,470 for AIDS Walk LA, raised money for the Red Cross for disaster relief in the Philippines, created a mock foundation and raised $2,500 for a grant to award a local non-profit and created some smaller projects, 2014-2015 is off to a quick start.  

Wednesday, September 10 was our first meeting.  We scheduled our meeting in the usual classroom, H2.  Shortly after the room started filling up, Robert, one of our Representatives who was helping people sign in, noticed that the line of students waiting to sign in was around the corner.  We thought quickly on our feet and decided to move into the auditorium, which was just across the hallway.  I welcomed everyone, quickly went over the agenda for the day and before I knew it I was thanking everyone for coming and the meeting was adjourned.  After I got back to the office I was eager to count the names on the sign-in sheet.  I knew it was going to be a big number, but after counting 50 then 60 then 70 and finally ending at 79 I began to panic.  I thought to myself, “How are we going to manage all these students?!”  My panic quickly turned to excitement when I thought of all the possibilities with such a large group of compassionate and dedicated young people. 

This year we have our own homeroom, but it was only open to some 7^th graders and a few 8^th graders.  The number is small so our first two classes saw us getting to work right away by preparing for our first event.  We created a plan and started cutting out doves to sell Peace Grams all next week in celebration for International Peace Day, which is September 21.  Students will buy Peace Grams for $1 and write a message of Peace to friend.  Peace Grams will be delivered Monday, September 22 during homeroom. 

AIDS Walk sign-ups also started this week and as of Friday, September 12, 9 students have signed up to walk this year.  If we get 30 people to sign up we’ll get our own pre-walk table/meeting place on the morning of the walk.  In a couple of weeks, we’ll also be starting a clothing drive for a local non-profit called SPY that works with homeless youth.  SPY was one of the non-profits that applied for our grant last year. 

I’m thankful for all the students and staff who are dedicated by giving their time and energy to make the world a better place and I look forward to a great year!

Hello

Hello blog world.  This is my very first post ever.  I created this blog to document and share with,,,everyone?,,,all the great work students in Paul Revere Middle School's Community Service Club in Los Angeles are doing.  Updates to come soon.