Do you enjoy helping others and making a difference in our school, our community, and the world?
Then you should join our FCE Service Club! We meet in Mrs. Bartholomew's Room on alternating Mondays from 2:50-3:50 pm. We plan and facilitate service learning projects for our school and do some service of our own. Come and join our FCE Service Club! See the FCE website for meeting dates. http://schools.roundrockisd.org/forestcreek/
“Since you get more joy out of giving joy to others, you should put a good deal of thought into the happiness that you are able to give.” Eleanor Roosevelt
Our Forest Creek Elementary Service Club strives to give joy to others. We facilitate lots of service learning projects for the school to help people locally and globally.
Locally:
Toy Drive-For the past three years, FCE families collected toys to raise awareness of OMS, which is a rare disease that affects one of our school families. Our goal each year is 200 toys for Dell Children's Hospital. Cole is a second grader student at our school, who has OMS. His mother, Christy, began this toy drive and comes to speak with our group and our school over broadcast to teach us about OMS and other rare diseases. She also talks about the positive impact of bringing the toys to the children at the hospital.
In 2012, FCE Service Club made sixteen fleece blankets for the children at the Emergency Shelter at Starry, Inc. Many of us were able to visit the cottage, play games, make crafts, and share cookies while we gave the children the blankets. In 2013 and 2014, our school made Valentines for the children at the Shelter and our club put together gift bags.
In 2011, we collected toiletry items and gift cards for wild fire victims in Bastrop and Smithville.
In 2012, we had a food drive that benefited some of our own families in need. We were able to fill the trunk of their cars with food to help over winter and spring break. Every year, we help with food drives for the Round Rock Serving Center.
For the past six years, we also worked with Mrs. Arnold, our art teacher, to help create and glaze bowls for the Empty Bowl Project, which benefits the Round Rock Serving Center.
Once a month, students from our FCE Service Club and other FCE families go to the Round Rock Serving Center to volunteer an hour of their time. We sort clothing for their clothing store, price merchandise for their households store, sweep steps, weed the vegetable gardens, and sort canned goods. We also drop off books for the waiting area. Families can take books donated from our school home with them when they come to pick up their food. It is wonderful to see the happy faces of the children who are taking home some new books and the proud faces of our students as they think beyond themselves and help others.
Globally:
Every year in December, children from our school made holiday cards for US servicemen and women.
For the last three years, we participated in a Walk to Read program to benefit Libraries of Love in Uganda. We raised about $500 and collected hundreds of hardback books to send to Africa. We had a walk around our track on MLK Day of Service. Lots of families came and learned about Libraries of Love, walked around our track, and stopped to read together. One of our students revised the lyrics of Everything is Awesome to Every Book is Awesome and recorded it with the help of our music teacher, Angie McDaniel, to play on our walk. In the spring of 2016, some of the classes had the opportunity to Skype with a classroom of students in Uganda. It was a wonderful chance to connect with kids from around the world. In 2017, we had a school wide Walk to Read Day during the school day. It was amazing to see the entire campus walking the track then stopping to read a book. The walk symbolizes the long walk to school that many children in Africa endure to get to school. Forest Creek donated $1,074.08 and 1,266 hard back books for Libraries of Love! Our children and families are very generous and extremely willing to help others.Thank you, Libraries of Love and Trudy Marshall for arranging this and for creating 36 libraries in Uganda as well as creating 7 libraries in Kenya. We are honored to be able to help with this amazing cause. Watch this video to see more. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpXmXfX8rQ4&feature=youtu.be
For the past four years, Forest Creek Elementary School students collected flip flops to benefit the children Copprome Children's Home and the people in the villages in Honduras. We collected over 200 pairs of flip flops each year and The Friends of Los Ninos organization took the flip flops to Honduras on their summer trips. The students in Service Club also wrote letters to the children at Copprome Orphanage in Honduras. We used google translate to write in Spanish and also made drawings and friendship bracelets for them. Go to https://www.friendsoflosninos.org/
to learn more about Friends of Los Ninos and ways that you can help. You could sponsor a child and help to provide them with necessary items for them to be able to go to school and stay healthy.
In Spring of 2016, we collaborated with Gattis Elementary, and Blackland Prairie Elementary and had a Kickball Tournament called Kids Kicking out Hunger. In 2017, we competed with Gattis, Blackland Prairie, and Cactus Ranch in our Kickball Tournament! We had a great time competing and raised money and food to help the Round Rock Serving Center and the Copprome Children's Home in Honduras.
In the fall of 2016, we helped a Shirya Patel, a former FCE Coyote and freshman at SPHS, collect books for Dell Children's Hospital.
Our club strives to provide opportunities for our school to help others. We are thankful to our families and our school administration for all their support for our projects, our community, and our world.
Links to learn more about hunger in Central Texas
http://feedingamerica.org/hunger-in-america/hunger-facts.aspx
http://www.austinfoodbank.org/hunger-is-unacceptable/hunger-maps.html
