Middle schoolers volunteer with Builders’ Club
At Marguerite Maze Middle School a group of 20 or more kids
gather in room B-3 every Monday. The students are all part of the
Builder’s Club, a club started by math and science teacher Nicole
Griffin to give the kids a chance to participate in community
service.
”
I knew I wanted to do some kind of community service-based
club,
”
Griffin said.
She first came up with the idea while she was a teacher at
Rancho San Justo Middle School and brought it with her to Maze this
year.
Middle schoolers volunteer with Builders’ Club
At Marguerite Maze Middle School a group of 20 or more kids gather in room B-3 every Monday. The students are all part of the Builder’s Club, a club started by math and science teacher Nicole Griffin to give the kids a chance to participate in community service.
“I knew I wanted to do some kind of community service-based club,” Griffin said.
She first came up with the idea while she was a teacher at Rancho San Justo Middle School and brought it with her to Maze this year.
“I wanted to do something different and they have a ton of clubs [at Rancho San Justo],” she said.
She heard about the Key Club at San Benito High School, a club where members focus on community service, and she thought she could take the concept to the younger students as well.
“I wanted to start a feeder club,” she said. “I wanted to promote community service at the middle school.”
She said there was an immediate interest from her students.
“People think they are too young or whatever,” she said of limited opportunities to volunteer for kids in sixth to eighth grade. “The very first day we had 68 students show up.”
By the end of the year the number had settled at 30, and the students had found plenty of opportunities to help.
The Builders’ Club is carried on at Rancho San Justo by school counselor Samantha Rivas who serves as advisor for the club. She said they have a group of 32 members, with a core 20 students who are most active in the club.
“For most of our students this is their first experience with community service,” Rivas said. “And then they just get the bug – the community service bug.”
The students adopted Emmaus House, a domestic violence shelter in Hollister, as the agency they wanted to support throughout the year. They did a drive for household goods in November and planned to stop by to for a Valentine’s celebration Feb. 12.
“They really take initiative,” Rivas said.
At Maze, the students have also done a variety of projects. They collected school supplies for a fellow student whose house had burned down. They sang Christmas carols at a local nursing home. They decorated a tree for the Hollister Downtown Association Lights on Parade with ornaments they collected as a club. Trees were later donated to needy families.
Matthew Velazquez, seventh grade, said he joined the club because he thought it would help him get a job in the future.
“When I get a job, I can put down more things I’ve done and I will be more suitable to the job,” he said.
He worked with the other students on Valentine’s Day cards they planned to deliver to a nursing home Feb. 11.
“It’s nice because you see what people have gone through,” he said. “You can give up your time to give them happiness.”
Velazquez said he also likes that all the students in the club get along. At the beginning of the meeting the students stand and say a peacebuilder’s pledge where they pledge not to put down other people and to acknowledge when they have hurt someone, among other things.
“Even though you don’t know people, they are alright,” he said. “Everyone is peaceful. There is no one to pick fights with.”
Some of the other club members signed up for the chance to volunteer.
Samantha Smith, eighth grade, is the president of the club.
“I heard there was going to be volunteering to help out the community,” she said. “I thought it would be a fun club to be in.”
Her favorite project so far was making Valentine’s Day cards.
“It’s fun to make them,” she said. “We will be delivering them on Wednesday. I think the people will probably be happy we are giving them Valentine’s Day cards.”
Some of the projects can be a little challenging, however. The students recently did a collection of plastic and paper bags to donate to Community Pantry. The bags are used to hand out supplemental food supplies to the members of the Pantry. The Maze club competed against the Rancho club. The tough part was counting thousands of bags to come up with the totals.
“For the people counting the bags that was hard because there were so many,” Smith said.
Some of the other students, including Elizabeth Hollowwa, eighth grade, and club Vice President Lauray Gutierrez, seventh grade, enjoyed serving dinner to the mayor of Hollister, firefighters and police officers.
“We got to dress nice and be fancy,” Hollowwa said. “A lot of the people were nice that we served.”
The kids vote on the projects and volunteer opportunities they pursue. They have plenty of ideas for future events, such as volunteering at an animal shelter or rescue group.
“A lot of the kids did volunteer with youth group or their churches,” Griffin said. “But for those who haven’t, they really like it.”
