Local students and teachers gathered Monday afternoon to present their projects and project plans to the local community in celebration of the Marilyn and William Young Charitable Foundation’s Student Leadership Grants.
The grants from the foundation were offered last fall to all local school districts to develop a service project that addressed a resolvable community or school need.
The Young Foundation provided $1,000 grants to support 22 projects within the community.
The plan was announced by the foundation as part of its 20th-year celebration and in hopes of bringing more recognition to its impact on the community. The first project was designed to engage the foundation with young leaders in the community.
Sara Hemingway, executive director of the Marilyn and William Young Foundation, said there was not one standout project on display because they all were so impressive.
Foust Elementary School’s non-violence service project involved a school-wide art design where teachers chose 12 of the pictures created by students to have made into metal signs that will eventually be hung around town with a focus on local parks.
During Monday’s exhibition, six of the eight students from Foust’s group discussed their interest in choosing to create visual signs to remind adults that children are seeing and feeling the violence firsthand, and they want to see it stopped.
One of the Foust students who worked on the project said that his father had been killed two years ago, so the implementation of this project was especially important to him.
Teacher Ashlie Hurley said they hope to have the signs hung before school ends in May.
Daviess County High School’s National Honor Society presentation included pictures and a slideshow that showcased what they used the grant for. When they learned that several students at Foust Elementary School were not picked for Christmas Wish, they purchased necessities and toys, including hygiene products for the students and distributed them to the school.
DCHS student Holly Payne said prior to this project, she had not heard of Foust Elementary School, because she has attended school in Daviess County Public Schools and Foust is in Owensboro Public Schools’ district.
Owensboro Catholic Schools’ K-3 Campus created a Kindness Garden where all students painted rocks and placed them in the shape of a cross in the school’s outdoor space after reading about making the world a better place. Students created two game boards were for students to cross off Random Acts of Classroom Kindness, or RACK, and when they completed these acts geared toward another person, they received recognition.
The students also took their acts of kindness to the community by praying for local nonprofits and also visiting nursing homes to carol during the holiday season.
Highland Elementary School students and staff used the funding to combat an ongoing issue of behavioral issues before the school day begins. Kelly Moore said that they used the money to purchase Legos, Magna-Tiles, Lincoln Logs and other hands-on building materials to spark creativity. Using a designated classroom space, students can build with the purchased items and even do craft projects they can take homemade with other materials. Students rotate through several areas, including the media center, to use the restless morning time more beneficially. Since it was difficult to show at the time of presentations, Moore had a video showing the various activities the students could do.
Owensboro Middle School’s project became a tribute project focusing on Roxie Pickrell, an Owensboro Public School student who died last fall. Classmate Andrew Diebel said that one of Pickrell’s ideas for the school was to bring awareness to recycling. She noticed that paper was recycled in the classrooms but that students did not have places to recycle in the lobby of the school or in the gym, which are areas where students congregate.
So, the students took her idea for recycling and combined it with a tangible object to remember Roxie. They are collecting plastic bottle caps and plastic lids to make benches for the community.
They plan to have one bench made for each school that Pickrell attended and one for each place her parents work.
The student council hopes to keep the “Recycle for Roxie” project as an ongoing project for years to come.
After presenting their displayed projects in the RiverPark Center lobby, the community was invited to Cannon Hall where participating schools presented their projects on stage.
