Students at the Pascagoula Opportunity Center celebrated Global Youth Service Day on April 23. The event was part of a Disney Friends for Change grant awarded to the Boys and Girls Clubs of the Gulf Coast-New Hope program.

The New Hope group was one of 75 applicants to receive a $500 Disney's Friends for Change grant supporting youth-led environmental initiatives for Global Youth Service Day, the largest service event in the world, April 23-25.

To read the complete article, visit http://blog.gulflive.com/mississippi-press-living/2010/05/global_youth_s....

Youth volunteers with Hot Springs Area Community Gardens on Sunday, April 25, participated as part of an international event called “Global Youth Service Day.”

To read the article and view the photo, visit http://www.hotsr.com/news/Arts/2010/05/03/global-youth-service-day-54.php.

My sister, Annica and I will create a documentary about the hardships that Native Americans face on reservations and what we as a nation can do about it.

Emma, Wyandotte Nation, will create a website with tips on how anyone can create "A Bridge".

Together, we will post the documentary: The Bridge, Native and Non Native Youth for Understanding on the website by 12:00, Saturday, April 24th.

Stay tuned!

The Out-of-School Time program at South Dakota State University will be picking up litter around the campus. The children will be placing the recyclable items in the correct locations as well as throwing the remainder of garbage away. This will be a continued service-learning project that the children began in January 2010.

City Year Washington, DC and Comcast will be partnering on Saturday April 24 for their annual Comcast Cares and Global Youth Service Day project. More than 500 volunteers will be beautifying Ballou Senior High School in SouthEast Washington, DC. We will be creating gardens, landscaping, building benches and picnic tables, painting murals on outdoor walls and inside the school and painting inspirational quotes throughout the hallways in the school.

Youth volunteers will work with adult volunteers at a local faith-based transitional housing program to teach young women how to cook and clean house. The 32 residents in the program will have the opportunity to work alongside young women from a local faith congregation to improve skills that will help them as they grow into adulthood and begin their own families.

Greening South Shore is a service project bringing together businesses, community members, schools and political leaders to clear vacant lots and plant flower gardens in pre-selected intersections in the community. Twenty youth will spearhead the initiative which will kick off April 24 and involve up to 100 over the summer.

Youth volunteers ages 16 - 25 will assist with Bullying Presentation and also assist Boys & Girls Club members ages 5-12 in preparing cards for veterans at the VA Hospital.

Registration Forms are available at www.volunteerpeninsula.org
Click on Youth Volunteerism to download a form.

Volunteers are needed to assist as egg hiders, hunt guides, Easter Bunny Helper, Photo Assistants, Egg Counters and Gift Givers, Food Sales and Arts and Crafts helpers.

For more information go to: www.volunteerpeninsula.org and click on Youth Volunteerism for a registration form.

Students, parents, and community volunteers from the Alpharetta High School area will have the opportunity to design and build ramps so that special needs students can work in a garden that will benefit the entire community. Teens will also receive the resources and tools they need to study nutrition, local farming and health eating habits. Career Based Instruction students will advance their work performance by developing hands-on responsibilities and fostering team-building in the process of growing and cultivating the community garden.

The Dinosaurs Are Coming!

The Hampton Chapter of Jack & Jill of America - the largest African American family organization in America met at the Virginia Living Museum to assist museum staff in creating dinousaur paws for an upcoming event. Twenty-two youth between the ages of 5 and 19 years, accompanied by 12 adults provided 68 hours of service.

Nebraska District JOOI members will package food to feed hungry children, most likely in Haiti!

Carrie Edwards and Elizabeth Weir of Maumelle are both students at eStem Public Charter School in Little Rock. The two students in Pulaski County Youth Service’s Leadership Institute were playing a life size rendition of the childhood game of Life, designed by Milton Bradley. For more information visit http://tinyurl.com/cx8yge.

Global Youth Service Day in Spencer, New York will be celebrated over three specific days with different events each day.

On Friday, April 24, 2009 members of the Spencer-Van Etten High School Key Club will plant a tulip tree at the S-VE High School in honor of GYSD and Earth Day. Funding for purchase of the tree was through a Disney Minnie Grant.

In the afternoon on Sunday, April 26, 2009, members of the Spencer and Van Etten communities, along with the S-VE Key Club, will pick up trash along a 5 miles stretch of road in Spencer.

The increase in pollution in Masaka, Uganda, is resulting in diseases such as malaria, dysentery and cholera. Thirty-nine children and youth will take a stand against the ignorance in their community by engaging in a community education campaign about proper waste disposal that brings people together, puts youth to work and begins to go about the business of cleaning up the neighborhoods by distributing waste bins. This project will benefit the entire community of 50,000 people.

The Dnieper, one of the longest rivers in Europe, is in danger of succumbing to negative environmental impacts. Eighty-five young students are concerned about impact that the pollution could have on their own quality of life and are organizing an awareness campaign to educate fellow students on the importance of cleaning up the river. After learning of the meaning of GYSD, the youth volunteers will host a drawing contest depicting ways people could help clean up the river and then go out to make some of those depictions come alive. The clean-up project will benefit 1000 people.

Deforestation in Kampala, Uganda, has led to loss of soil fertility and flooding. Residents have simply become too dependent on the area

According to the statistics from the National Environment Management Authority, the increasing numbers of cars and motor bikes in Masaka municipality, Uganda, emit over 6,000 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions every year. With the least forest cover in the whole country, these statistics mean that all the carbon emissions produced in the area are directly absorbed by the local residents, visitors and wildlife.

As members of the Soviet Union, citizens of Moldova were provided access to books Russian or the Cyrillic alphabet only. The country's language is now officially Romanian. However, without money, schools and libraries have been unable to purchase books in their native language. Forty seven children and youth of the Siscani elementary school want to encourage students to read by purchasing new books and sponsoring a contest on who can read the most books in one month. The children volunteers will work in the library after school, helping 247 younger children with homework and read to them.

Twenty four children and youth in Butare, Rwanda want to provide a mentoring network for children afflicted by HIV and AIDS. The stigma associated with the virus is responsible for the unfair treatment of victims, and these volunteers want to provide a support system for the victims while at the same time educating the general school population of the harmful affects such bullying can have on their peers. Through seminars and professional referrals the volunteers hope they can create a more positive reality for youth victims of HIV.

The project will begin with the training of fifteen children and youth on environmental degradation as a result of human activity. These fifteen youth will then go out to nearby schools to engage their peers in the same training and public awareness campaign. Through a poetry contest the organizers will begin forming the basis for a book, entitled Save the World, which will then be distributed to nonprofits, schools and the community at large.

Child mortality is but one dismal result of the lack of the practice of hand washing in this area. In response to this growing problem, the United Nations observed Global Hand Washing Day for the first time in 2008. Members of a local science club that is comprised of girls with disabilities and girls without parents, will take this message to their own community.

Youth volunteers will organize street cleanup campaigns to help residents of slums in Trichy recognize their potential to cleanse their environment of waste and disease. With the help of government services the youth will show 3,000 residents how to clean public water taps and keep other common areas free of an accumulation of waste. The project is a multilevel strategy to place youth at the forefront of helping their local area stay clean and safe for the enjoyment all residents.

Disasters are frequent visitors of Nagapattinam District in TamilNadu, India. Almost every year it faces a disaster and a large amount of livestock is devastated. Now 50 children want to prepare the community for disaster and reduce the devastation through forming volunteer groups that will lead emergency and restoration operations. The youth will educate the community on disaster Risk Reduction and build a disaster-resilient community. The youth will build homes and engage in other opportunities to help 3451 residents regain their self-confidence.

A combination of natural disasters, deforestation and inefficient agricultural practices has resulted in a reduction of water and food supplies for residents of this community. A group of youth volunteers that is comprised of Dalit youth will survey the surrounding geography to analyze the harmful impacts of poor public hygiene practices. They aim to work with government officials to initiate environmentally sustainable practices such as solid waste management, and planting and care of saplings. The efforts of these dedicated youth will touch no less than 3,500 residents.

One of the biggest problems of this community is the improper disposal of solid human waste. Youth in the area are working with school officials to turn their lessons into a real world practice of evaluating the problem and providing solutions to reduce the harmful effects of open defecation and other unsanitary practices. Among other activities, the youth will also help to plant trees to reinforce a strong environment and counteract the detrimental activity.

In Trichy, trees and other crops are dying as a result of the use of toxic pesticides. Fifty-three children and youth volunteers will mount an educational campaign to slow down the destruction of their local ecosystem through literature and hands-on activities to set an example for the need to preserve natural resources, such as using compost and bio pesticides in the place of chemicals. They aim to have an impact on 2,500 members of the community.

Twenty four children in Nagercoil understand there is an environmental problem. They are creating an eco-friendly club that will be as much about helping their natural surroundings as it will be about building character and moral fiber. The club will welcome girls and youth from vulnerable circumstances. They will collect recyclables, plant and maintain saplings in their schools, and creating usable items from recyclable materials. It is expected that the project will help youth find their own place in society through this campaign to clean up their community.

Unhealthy pesticides have reduced the fertility of the soil, resulting in a number of unsavory impacts for the residents of Guntur, Andhra Pradesh. Fifty Dalit children volunteers are moving forward with a campaign of posters, pamphlets, street plays and one-on-one communication to bring awareness of this problem to government authorities and members of the community. The children will use a diverse skill set to engage the project in a way that teaches the community about the environment and enhances the childrens