Leal Elementary Service Club Students Help Community
A group of dedicated fifth-grade students at Leal Elementary spend time each week doing service projects designed to help others. This is the first year of the Leal Service Club, founded and supervised by teacher Kay Bell.
Since Leal has a large bilingual population, Bell says she wanted to begin an activity that could bring both English-speakers and Spanish-speakers together in meaningful ways. Bell explains, “I wanted the Hispanic children and the English-speaking children to work together, and I thought a community service organization would be a good way to get them together.”
The students decided they wanted to do projects to help other children – “kids helping kids” according to Bell. The Service Club began this past October. Students make crafts to sell, with the proceeds going to organizations that help kids in need. Bell says the children haven’t donated the money yet, because they are still deciding where to send it. This past fall the Service Club made stocking caps on looms. Those caps then went to the children at Washington Early Childhood Center and Crisis Nursery.
Students enjoy doing work they know will help others. Maria is a fifth-grader who started attending Service Club at the beginning and she says, “It makes me feel happy…because we’re kids that can help other people.” Nanami is also a charter-member of the service club. “It's fun and I like helping other children a lot,” she says.
The Leal Service Club meets twice a week. For more information about Leal Service Club please contact Kay Bell at Leal at 384-3618.