Project Peace: Day of Service
By Children Rising | December 26, 2016
Over the past nine years, Project Peace has been a catalyst for change at local schools, homeless shelters, mentoring programs, and other social service providers. They began in 2007 partnering with one church and engaging 100 volunteers to serve 300 hours. Last year Project Peace partnered with 20 churches, engaged over 1,300 volunteers, and served over 4,000 hours at social service providers and schools across the East Bay, several of which are also served by Children Rising.
Project Peace does an outstanding job of organizing Days of Service that take place on Saturdays, 9:00 am – 12:00 noon every three months. They prepare by going to the service site in advance to determine priority needs, and then congregations and individual volunteers are assigned to a particular site knowing what tasks will be addressed. For example at the last Day of Service, Garfield Elementary volunteers focused their attention on “leveling” books, which means sorting and labeling according to reading grade level. This time consuming work is immensely helpful to teachers, enabling them to quickly choose books that correspond to a given student’s level of reading proficiency.
What is unique about the Day of Service is that it gives people who are busy on weekdays an opportunity to give back on a half-day Saturday. Once a Project Peace volunteer gets acquainted with a school site, they may be able and willing to serve on a week day while school is in session. For example, the Garfield Elementary Day of Service was the catalyst for the launching of an Excel Reading Clinic staffed by volunteers who come weekly to tutor second- and third-graders.
Next Project Peace Day of Service is Saturday, Feb. 25.
For volunteer sign-up information, go to: www.projectpeaceeastbay.org.
May God bless your new year!