Students teach big lessons

Without all those math problems to solve and vocabulary words to remember, the summer respite from school gives children the opportunity to think big. Maybe supplying an orphanage in South America with toiletries and clothes. Or restocking the local food bank.

They’re both examples of how students who participate in Start Something, a volunteerism program, see the value of an education that goes beyond the classroom.

Start Something, which is sponsored by the Tiger Woods Foundation and Target, gives children something that many service programs don’t: ownership.

It doesn’t encourage students to join a project run by a larger organization, however worthwhile it may be. Instead, it encourages them to identify an interest and opportunity to make a difference in the world. Then, it gives them some tools — ranging from scholarships to presentation tips — to accomplish their goals.

“I started this project around the time of the hurricanes in Florida. Our food banks were helping Florida, so I thought we’d replenish our local food banks,” says Madeline Perez, an 18-year-old recent graduate of Westover High School in Fayetteville, N.C.

“I’d been in Key Club and the National Honor Society, but this is the first time I ran something myself. I wanted to give back before I left Westover. It was stressful, but then when I saw how happy everyone at the food bank was, it was worth it,” she says.

Among the decisions she made were to dangle prizes in front of teachers, who in turn gave incentives — such as “no homework” passes — to their students who participated in Miss Perez’s food drive. It also was her call to distribute the food locally instead of sending it directly to the hurricane victims.

“No shipping,” explains Miss Perez, who will attend Duke University as a pre-med major in the fall.

Once she took the initiative, her classmates were eager to help, Miss Perez reports, coming up with 6,000 canned goods, well beyond her target of 2,000.

“This says to me that these kids actually care. … They probably participated more than anyone expected,” she says.

Westover’s student body, about 1,350 students, also showed their generosity in their support of two other Start Something projects this past year: Micelli Bianchini’s collection for an orphanage in Guyana and Crystal Kemp’s Christmas book giveaway.

Micelli, 17, visited Guyana, his parents’ native country, last summer. He visited an Islamic orphanage “and I noticed they needed some things. … I thought I could help,” he explains.

“I let my friends know that the project was something pretty close to my heart. The students collected a lot of items, and a lot of people asked me about Guyana and how was the life there. I wasn’t collecting just to have a project; this was something I felt I had to do,” he says.

Miss Kemp, 18, will move on to Fayetteville State in the fall, where she will study to be a math teacher. Her interest in becoming a teacher was fueled by Westover’s early childhood education program; she has been a part of it since the ninth grade.

Part of the program was to put on a holiday show every December for students from nearby elementary schools, who would get a candy cane as a token gift. Miss Kemp decided that they should get more; she thought they should get something to further their education, so she collected and oversaw the distribution of 2,000 books.

The Westover community, both in and around the school, is enjoying its newfound reputation as “a school for community service,” says counselor Dawn Holt.

In the 2000-01 school year, a group of students set out to reverse the school’s image as divided and underperforming, and they started a program called FreshStart, which offered mentoring and tutoring to incoming freshmen to help them successfully make the transition into responsible and respectful almost-adults. The school even added to its mission statement that it wanted to be nationally recognized for its service.

The following year, FreshStart registered with Start Something and the Tiger Woods Foundation, and that seemed to open the floodgates of the students’ good ideas and good will, Miss Holt says.

“Start Something gives them a method to carry out their good ideas. … You can see a difference in our school now. It’s always, ’We can do more,’ ” Miss Holt says.

Getting started

Start Something, a character-education program sponsored by the Tiger Woods Foundation and Target, works with Richard Gallagher, a clinical psychologist and director of the Parenting Institute at the New York University Child Study Center. During a recent telephone interview, Mr. Gallagher offered tips to parents and caregivers to help stimulate children’s interest in volunteerism — an interest that easily can become a passion.

m Be a role model. Even if you have limited time to volunteer, consider how you talk about others. Praise people who are making a difference — and show tolerance for those who make mistakes.

• Teach children to help others starting at a young age. Even preschoolers can contribute around the house by sharing and helping with siblings. Starting around first grade, encourage volunteer activities outside the family. Depending on the child’s age and interest, activities might include playing with dogs at a local animal shelter, volunteering at the local library or walking to raise money to fight disease. At the same time, Mr. Gallagher cautions not to force good deeds, either.

• Help your child set aside regular time for volunteer activities. Committing a couple hours per week is a good goal.

• Talk about local, national and international issues that your child may want to help address. For example, your child can help address the issue of hunger by collecting canned food for a local shelter for the homeless. Or your family might want to take action together to support relief efforts for a natural disaster overseas.