Service blitz planned by Vanlue School

VANLUE — Until this year, the Monday before Thanksgiving — the only day Vanlue students attend school for the week — was a throwaway day. But this year, all 118 students will participate in "Thankful for our Community Day." The service blitz will take them out into the community and also to Findlay where they will volunteer at nonprofit agencies like the City Mission, Women's Resource Center and Cancer Patient Services. "Giving back, especially to those in need, I think is a huge thing," said K-12 Principal Sam Petrie. "And I think the more we can instill that in our K-12 grade kids, hopefully they take that with them for their life and can do positive things with it." This is something Petrie has been thinking about for a while — especially after he looked at the school calendar. "The kids are here just that Monday before Thanksgiving. So a lot of times, back when I was a teacher, that day was kind of used as a movie day, craft day, things like that," he said. "It's hard to get a lot of educational things in so I thought it fit well with this idea that we could go out and help in our community." Petrie and the guidance counselor, Nicole Smith, sought project ideas around Vanlue but didn't hear much back except for work in the village park. "Then I thought, well, Findlay's right next door so there's plenty of places there that can use some volunteers," he said. Petrie talked to people at school to find out where they had volunteered before. That led to a phone call to Mindy Ary, volunteer coordinator at United Way of Hancock County, about two months ago. "She called back and said she would love to even help organize a lot of this stuff," said Petrie. Ary said she's very excited about the idea. "He just said, I would like to try and do something like this but he don't know what it would look like or if it's even possible," she said. "I think they're (the kids) going to love it." Ary helped find a place for each grade level. Students will be helping that day at City Mission, Transformations Thrift Store, Hope House, Fox Run Manor, Cancer Patient Services, NAMI, Women's Resource Center and CHOPIN Hall. "They all came through and all the agencies were so excited to have the kids there, so hopefully it will be a really good chance for them to learn," she said. Ary and the United Way's Volunteer Ambassadors will also be out that day to help. "I think we (Petrie and Smith) spent 20 hours of working together to figure out who's going where, what grades are going to go to what places. When are they going to have lunch? Are they going to have lunch here or are they going to have lunch at the place?" said Petrie. Busing logistics were also a stuggle, he said. The PBIS (Positive Based Intervention Team) heard about the idea first and were all in favor of it. "They all liked the idea of it not being like just a throwaway day type thing. We were going to give back to the people who give us so much and who take care of a lot of people in need and this was our way to help out," said Petrie. Teachers were updated at a staff meeting. Petrie said the students will all be wearing school T-shirts. "Last year when I started working at the school, I noticed that a lot of the students didn't have Vanlue gear. So I was able to partner with the Wildcat Café last year, and for Christmas every kid in our school got a matching Vanlue T-shirt," he said. "I'm going to have them all wear their matching T-shirts that day to kind of showcase what our little school is doing out in the community." Kindergarten and first graders will stay at the school and pack beans and rice in individual family-sized bags that will be placed in the little free pantries around town. When they finish, the students will don orange vests and head to the park, weather permitting, to pick up litter. Three faculty members will accompany each group. The agencies will explain to the students what they do and how they help in the community. Then they'll be put to work. Petrie said they've heard a lot of positive feedback. A survey will be sent to the teachers and the agencies afterwards to see how to the day could be improved if it's held again. "Our thought originally was to do one in the fall and one in the spring, so we'll see how that works out," he said. "My original, original idea way back in the spring was once a month on a Friday getting people in the town to reach out with different projects they had, and whether it was raking leaves right now or maybe painting a closet, painting a room, reach out with what their project idea was." Petrie would vet the work and determine what grade level would be best with the job. "I don't want it to always be the seniors or the fifth graders or seventh graders. I wanted a mix of kids getting out of the building to help out," he explained. Ary and Petrie are also hopeful that other schools will follow Vanlue's lead. "It would be awesome because these places need help all the time and it's hard to find anybody to volunteer," said Petrie. "If we could be the chain reaction to start positive actions, that'd be great." Ary agreed. "That's what we're really hoping, that others will follow in their footsteps," she said. "To me this is just as exciting as Days of Caring."