On Friday April 23, 2010 the SAVE US club memebrs, parents, classmates and community leaders gathered at the Scott County park to show their committment to the prevention of violence in our community. We shared hotdogs, chips, cookies and drinks with all particpants, supplied by the SAVE US clubs funds which included grant from Do Something. Particpants displayed posters from the poster contest, inclduing posters against child abuse, dating violence, bullying, hate crimes, domestic violence, and suicide. Parents and community leaders spoke about violence and its impact on the qulaity of life in our community and how to Stand up, Speak out amd Stop it in the campaign against violence. Particpants enjoyed the music and fun until 10 PM.

Teens from the Philadelphia area will spend the day clearing invasive vines, planting trees and wildflowers, building stairs, digging a pond, and removing trash from the Cobbs Creek Community Environmental Education Center. After doing hands on work, there will be reflection workshops including drama, sketching, poetry, composting and journal making.

First graders at Tamarac Elementary School have been doing presentations about recycling juice pouches within their school. They've visited every classroom with information 'how to' recycle juice pouches so they can be made into useful items instead of filling our landfills. These students also created and narrated a PowerPoint presentation on the process of recycling the juice pouches that was presented at a school-wide assembly. Students and their families learned how to recycle the pouches and what was being done with them. They also learned that for every juice pouch we recycle 2 cents goes to our Parent Teacher Student Association for their use in supporting school programming. In their last shipment to the recycling company they sent 1900 juice pouches which earned the PTSA $38. That's a pretty good return for something that would have ended up cluttering the landfill.

Program in Celebration of services and renewed committment to helping others.

Acknowledgement of community participation in recent fund raising events for Haiti Relief. Presentation of $1,000 donation to Red Cross and recognition of elementary students' dedication in raising funds.

"How Can I Help?" Role Playing presentation by high school students to elementary students suggesting ways in which students can improve the community: environmental stewardship through recycling efforts,planting trees and flowers,sharing our garden produce, and helping neighbors, helping friends.

Wrap-up with curriculum-aligned tutorial math games led by high school students, celebrating having fun and helping others.

A follow-up "How Have I Helped?" is planned in May with continued encouragement to serve our community.

The iRoc Fitness event will introduce youth ages 10-15 to new sports activities. The youth will be introduced to the YMCA's Fitness Aracade along with other health and wellness activities. The youth will play a number of competitive games including: video games, basketball, dodgeball, volleyball and swimming. We will end the day with a brief seminar about eating healthy and a variety of healthy foods and snacks will be provided. Each participant will receive a "iRoc Fitness" T-Shirt.

Activity involves removing invasive, non-native plants in Highland Glen Park, a wilderness and nature park located in North Utah County. Dalmatian Toadflax and Bull Thistle will be targeted. Reason for project: Invasive, non-native plant are harmful to the environment several ways. Many of them are toxic to local wildlife. Others can secrete toxins into the soil and make it hard for native plants to grow. Because wildlife avoid eating non-native plants, it provides an opportunity for non-native plants to outgrow native species. In addition, many species of non-native plants dry out early in the summer and become fire hazards. Spring and early summer is the best time for non-native plant removal because they haven't gone to seed yet. They are also easier to remove because they are smaller.

Pillsbury House youth will create a audience participatory art event inviting Central neighborhood residents to collaboratively create a response to the home foreclosure epidemic spread throughout specific areas of South Minneapolis. Youth will photo document foreclosed properties in Central Neighborhood and invited neighbors to write stories, evoke the histories of the families and lives that occupied the now boarded up homes. These will be presented through a public presentation and on the world wide web. This is a collaborative project involving artists from the Powderhorn365 project.

Pillsbury House Youth P.A.C. members will conduct community software training sessions to provide residents and local businesses the opportunity to access the Central Mobile Art Team (CMAT) Mobile Art Cart. The mobile art cart is being built by the Youth PAC in collaboration with Full Cycle and the Minneapolis Art On Wheels.

The Central Mobile Art Team - Youth PAC will conduct neighborhood interviews with residents from Central neighborhood, serving as cultural enumerators collecting residents feedback and personal connections related to the concepts of what we call "home." These stories and testimonials will be processed by the youth to present their findings at a public event on May 8, 2010, as well as in a multi-media report to the Central Area Neighborhood Development Organization.

Youth from the Pillsbury House youth program will build and manage rain water collection systems to serve as irrigation systems for adjacent community gardens and boulevard beautification projects.

Using a video camera to capture the essence of the neighborhood, Pillsbury House FANS (Furthering A Network [of] Support) Participants hit the pavement to talk to the very people that inhabit it. The youth created questions about youth, the community and ways in which they [interviewees] will hold themselves accountable in working toward the betterment of both youth and the community. The project will conclude with a viewing of the docu, which will occur in the Powderhorn Neighborhood (which houses the FANS Program).

YOuth from the Chatham Unit of the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Danville area will be advocating for safe driving practices at the local Old Dutch Supermarket. The youth have been testing the effects of texting and driving using a driving video game. They have created a brochure detailing their findings and encouraging all drivers to drive safely and never text while driving.

AmeriCorps members will engage on a video conference with students from Centro De Bachillerato Tecnológico de Ocoyoacac. This event has two objectives that will be addressed. The first one consists of a conversation between members and students in regards to school, allowing both sides to identify similarities and differences of being a student in a different country; such as goals and obstacles. The second objective is to inform of AmeriCorps and the importance of the service that it provides to the community. In this process AmeriCorps members will motivate the foreign students into serving their community either by tutoring or beautifying it; thus allowing knowledge and with this the possibility of more options towards a healthy and free life.

The Girl Scouts Spirit of NE outreach sites in Omaha and Lincoln are doing book drives for various organizations that need books, the girls at each sites decided where to donate the books that they received and set goals for the number of books they would like to get. They created a campaign and contests between grades and students vs. staff to raise books. They stressed the importance of reading on the future of America in the areas of crime rates, literacry rates, college and graduation rates, as well as family time, and positive use of free time for young people. Some of the books are going to the Latina Resource Center, Homeless Shelters, Daycares for underserved Families and other Family Resource Centers in communities that girls deemed as underserved. The girls will be delivering the books to the sites themselves.

High School parenting students will develop peer tutoring activities for other high school students.

We're seeking volunteers to help out around the barn at Happy Trails Therapeutic Riding Center during National Volunteer Week and Global Youth Service Day!

Looking for:

•Families
•Horse lovers
•Groups
Projects include:

•Cleaning bridles and saddles
•Assiting with electrical wiring in arena
•Shoveling and moving woodchips
•Trimming trees
•Digging ditches
•Painting
If you love being around horses or just want to volunteer for a good cause, come join us!

Sign up link http://burrittplanting.eventbrite.com/

Join us at Burritt on the Mountain for a special planting project. Celebrate Global Youth Service Day and the positive change we can make in our community.

Looking for groups, families, youth, nature lovers!

Over 60 Wilmington College students will be going to various locations throughout the community to perform several hours of community service for a variety of non-profits.

On Friday, April 23rd, 2010 a Proclamation and Kick-Off Ceremony is scheduled at Indiana Wesleyan University, Student Center, Marion, Indiana. In addition to the ceremony our first event the Service-Learning Showcase will introduce youth in the area who have participated in Semester of Service over the past year who will showcase their projects via poster presentations.

On Saturday, April 24th, 2010 two primary events take place which include a Service Festival from 12-2PM at Indiana Wesleyan University (IWU)and a number of Community Clean-Up Projects sponsored by IWU Student Activities Council and Main Street Marion.

Nollie Jenkins Family Center will host its annual Earth Day Celebration in Lexington, MS. Our youth will do presentations on recycling, composting, illegal dump sites, and the origin of Earth Day. We are expecting 200 or more people to participate. We'll have sports activities such as volley ball, badminton, dodge ball, sack racing and more. Participants will plant our community garden with transplants of tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, honey dew melons and yellow squash. The kids will plant seeds of watermelons, cantaloupes, corn, okra, pole beans and black-eyed peas.
We will enjoy a healthy meal of sweet potato casserole, green salad, pasta salads, black-eye pea salad and of course, squash cookies for desert.
We are looking forward to having fun as we remember our commitment to the environment and our own health.
We will continue with more Fun Outdoors activities on Sunday. We will play the same sports and add a 2 mile walk to the activities.

The Cedar Riverside Youth Council is planning an event with the College of St Catherine to raise awareness about the problem of hunger in our community, and gather donations of food for the Coyle Food Shelf. The youth will be volunteering in the food shelf that day, and will be playing a basketball game against the St Kate's college students to raise money and donations, while distributing information to the attendees about the facts of hunger.

This event brings all of the Sobrante Park and Brookfield neighborhood partners who work with Higher Ground Neighborhood Development Corp. programs to bring a living lab to the campus through the establishment of a comprehensive garden and nutrition program serving the elementary school and surrounding community. All year students at both programs have been learning about the raw produce that combat the four chronic killers of African American and Latino communities in Oakland, CA. The quadruple threats are high blood pressure, diabetes, stroke, and depression. Children learned to plant, harvest, and prepare these foods.

This weeklong event will be focused on educating young and college age students in our local area. We have a company that is making tremendous strides toward helping others know about the significance of alternative energy sources and how to apply them to the future and everyday use. We have the support of the local University and feel fortunate that we can offer our services to help the future generations of our Nation and World. Let us know how we can help your local community, town, or city and we would be happy to give information and expertise on things that can be done immediately and also long term effects. We may also be able to come to your area and give support through organized conferences and college events. Hoping everyone has a Great Earth Day!

Sincerely,
Brian Hilton
bhilton@lighthouserenewable.com

The Camp Joshua Youth will work to tackle the neighborhood street by street surrounding our church to clean up trash, pick up large items dumped to rot in the street, clean glass, and wipe any graffiti found during the clean up.

Clean-up project will continue beyond GYSD to bring neighborhood pride back to this community. Further clean-ups will include mowing of walk paths, distribution of energy effecient light bulbs & recycle bags and food bags for the elderly.

Volunteers interested in supporting concessions for the Circus are asked to contact The Volunteer Center of the Virginia Peninsula. A percentage of all sales are donated to local nonprofit agencies. To get involved contact: events@volunteerpeninsula.org

The Neighborhood Center and Metropolitan Community College have teamed up with a few other local organizations in Omaha to sponsor the South Omaha Graffiti Clean-Up. College students and their families are participating in the clean-up. We have around 200 volunteers. http://www.mccneb.edu/servicelearning/studentevents.asp

College of Notre Dame students will spend the afternoon with the children of Anna's House, a transitional home for homeless women and their children. Student volunteers will be giving the mothers at Anna's House the afternoon off by taking the kids on a walk through the trails around the area, arts and crafts, and helping serve lunch.

We are going to make water bottle covers for the people of Chile. They use water bottles in the winter to put between their bedding to keep them warm. A family is raising donations of water bottle covers and money to buy the water bottles in a few months when they go to Chile to visit family.

High school students who are members of The KNOWN Youth Anti-Drug Coalition will plan alternate youth activities during Spring Break for their classmates in an effort to reduce underage binge drinking among 14-25 year olds. Daily and nightly activities will include bowling, outdoor and indoor laser tag, a three-on-three basketball tournament, indoor bike & skatepark, movie night, a disc golf tournament, and flag football & tailgate party. The week will culminate with an all-day concert with giveaways, air guitar & karaoke contests, free food, pick-up baskeball, volleyball & cornhole games, free video & arcade games, and featuring six local bands and a hip hop breakdancing group from Nashville.
Students will work together to plan and market the event, and also garner community support by soliciting donations from local businesses and requesting support from leaders in the community. The students will record in journal entries how the project has benefitted them.
The project information will be posted on the youth coalition's website at www.beaKNOWbody.com and on The KNOWN's Facebook page.
Students and community leaders will gather a few weeks later on Global Youth Service Day for a Celebration Day of their Clean Break accomplishments and the many youth who signed Pledge Cards throughout the week.

If you live in Willcox
The City of Willcox is proud to announce that the Spring Clean up day
will be on Saturday April 24 beginning at 7:30 AM. The day will start
in Railroad Park with a rousing welcome speech by Kathy Smith,
Director of the Chamber of Commerce and Agriculture, followed by
an all out assault on the trash and litter accumulated since last
September’s Fall Clean up!

Bags for the clean up will be available at Railroad Park from 7:30 AM
until 9:00 AM and a dumpster will be located on the lot at the corner
of Stewart Street & Railroad Avenue.

We encourage everyone to participate and assist us in making
Willcox a cleaner, more attractive place to visit, and to live.
For Additional Information, Contact the Willcox Chamber of Commerce at
520-384-2272

If you live in Tucson, join us at the Volunteer Center of Southern Arizona, 924 N. Alvernon Way for All Washed Up. We'll be cleaning and painting a mural in Montezuma wash. We'll walk to the wash together and help Peter Howell Neighborhood by adding a little more beauty to the streets. All youth ages 5-25 welcome! Call (520) 881-3300 x 146 to sign up!