Visiting author
When Pierce Elementary had a parent-teacher night in April, the YouthQuest team swapped out their regular club rotation in favor of an evening with Gale Glover, founder of Flint Kids Matter. The school’s community school director helped coordinate the visit with Glover, who has published more than 10 books. During her visit, Glover read stories to the students and parents, and they read to her. As noted by Pierce’s site team leader, Danielle Williams, YouthQuest, Flint Community Education Initiative and Pierce’s principal have set a schoolwide goal to increase literacy: “Anytime we can embed reading into our programming, we do it.”
A pirate’s life
The Happy Pirates Adventure Club has inspired the imaginations of students in grades K-2 at South Bendle Elementary. The club explores the differences in pirates from around the world and teaches the meaning of terms such as stern, aft and starboard. This knowledge has been helpful as the students create their own treasure and island maps, draw flags for their ships and pick their pirate names. What’s more, the young captains can earn special trinkets, such as eye patches and gold coins, for all their hard work. This particular club puts an emphasis on creativity and dreaming big!
Sew cool!
At Durant-Tuuri Mott Elementary, HobbyQuest has been teaching students in Fashion Club basic sewing skills. The students started with practicing their stitches on paper and have since advanced to fabric. Currently, the students are working on repurposing old t-shirts into backpacks that they will model during a fashion show in May. As YouthQuest’s Katrina Nickson notes, “When it comes to fashion, the styles change every day. By teaching students how to sew, we can offer them a cost-effective and easy way to repurpose the clothes they already have!”
Fruits & vegetables
On Earth Day, YouthQuest students at Freeman Elementary helped FoodCorps and AmeriCorps prepared the school garden for planting by weeding the raised garden beds and removing old straw. Additionally, FoodCorps has been working with YouthQuest’s gardening club on a weekly basis. While it’s been too cold to start planting in the actual garden, students have gotten a head start by starting seeds in pots. Once it’s consistently warmer, those starter plants will be added into the school garden and eventually be harvested for the school’s community vegetable stand.
YouthQuest is made possible through the generous support of the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation and 21st Century Community Learning Centers.