Community Service Committee
We have a very active Community Service program, but are always looking for new ideas and volunteers. We usually have monthly projects, and our BIG EVENT is the Community Service Fair, scheduled for Saturday, February 21st (SAVE THE DATE!!!)
Our planned programs for the 2008-9 school year:
- August-September: School Supplies Drive, to benefit our sister school in Rockville, Maryvale Elementary School
- October: Our annual Help the Homeless Mini-Walk, held at the school during each class recess time, which will take place on Thursday, October 16th. Registration forms are due by 10/16, but need to be in by 10/7/08 in order to have a special t-shirt on the day of the walk.
- October 16th: World Hunger Day – in conjunction with our Help the Homeless Mini-Walk, we are asking students to bring a can of food to help end hunger in Montgomery County.
- November (but may start in October): Share the Warmth Drive to benefit our sister school, Maryvale Elementary, through their Linkages to Learning program for low income families (coats, mittens, hats, boots)
- January and February: Food collections for the Smart Sack program at Manna Food Center in Rockville. Donations of nutritious packaged food and drink will be packaged at the Community Service Fair on 2/21/09.
- Saturday, February 21st – Community Service Fair – multiple projects to benefit multiple causes
- March: Share our Shoes and Shirts Drive - to benefit Art for Humanity, which will package and send them to people in need in Honduras.
Community Service Green Team
This is a relatively new program at BFES, and our hope is to make it bigger and bigger!
Our goals are to make BFES a greener place – trying to be kinder to our planet, careful about our use of resources, and always thinking of new ways to do better at our school.
We will continue some of our programs from the past, including:
- Waste Free Lunch Days: scheduled intermittently through the year, these are days when BFES students try to create less waste in the lunchroom.
Students who bring lunch: will try to create less waste by bringing reusable or recyclable containers for food/drinks, cloth napkins, and plastic or stainless steel cutlery that they bring home to be used again.
Students who buy lunch: try not to waste food, recycle all plastic bottles, and save yellow lunch trays for use in the Art Room. - Recycling Blizzard: We are trying very hard to improve our recycling at Beverly Farms, aiming for a goal of 50% RECYCLING!!! We have many students and staff working to make sure that everything that can be recycled (paper, bottles, cans, aluminum) is recycled, but we need everyone’s help! We had multiple entries into the county’s recycling poster contest, and one student (Mia Hazra) won a second place award, earning money for the recycling program at BFES!
- SERT Program: We have an active SERT program, coordinated by Mrs. Ellen Jimenez, the aim of which is to reduce unnecessary energy use at the school. Last year we had multiple entries into the SERT poster contest (“Watt’s Up?”}, and hope to have many entries again this year. Last year 2 of our students (Andrew and Kira Zhovnirovkskii) had a poster that won a prize and was chosen for mass distribution in the county!
- GreenKids program: We have been chosen by the Audubon Society to be a GreenKids school for the years 2008-2010! This is a multi-faceted program that gives naturalist time, teaching training, programming for classrooms, and funding for “greening” our grounds.
- Earth Day (April 22nd, 2009) – We’ll have a multitude of programs to celebrate Earth Day, including Waste Free Lunch Day, Walk to School Day, and Wear Green and Blue Day!
Please direct any thoughts, ideas, or questions about Community Service issues to Monika Woods at woodsm@massmed.org or Anne Friedman at annefriedman@aol.com - thanks!