By Jessica Hare
Keep Alliance Beautiful
Last January, I started a series for the media called Better in 2018. It was a way to talk about resolutions and habits and intentions and how we can all work to do a little better. I went back and read my first article in the series and was prompted to review my year to see how I stack up against the expectations I set for myself.
Here’s a quote from that first article: “From what I’ve learned over the past couple of years, self-awareness is the ultimate key to habit change. Getting some space from your reactive, autopilot self, the space to stop and say ‘What in the world am I even doing?,’ is what we need to objectively observe our habits and decide if they serve us or hold us back.”
That kind of talk is great in theory, but we all know that there can be a gap between intention and action. The clarity with which we observe our lives on December 31st does not always survive the chaos of real life. So I want to check back in and ask myself, “What in the world did KAB Education accomplish this year?” Let’s take a look at the numbers and break down our efforts using the categories of school programs, community partnerships and activities, and contests.
School programs:
We extended the reach of our Black Ops program to the Immanuel Lutheran School in Alliance and the two third grade classrooms in Hemingford. This brought our total up to 100 kids enrolled in the program.
Black Belts, our follow-up to Black Ops saw seven fourth graders graduate in May and 15 sign up this school year. We are continuing the program with our five community partners who provide supplementary lessons and activities for the kids who enroll.
Thanks to the teachers and administrators who allowed me to come in, I was able to deliver two rounds of classroom presentations. The first occurred around Earth Day and focused on litter prevention. Twenty-seven presentations were delivered to 577 kids at five different schools. This fall, in anticipation of America Recycles Day, I gave 29 presentations to 650 kids at five schools.
Community Partnerships and Activities:
We have continued to strengthen our relationships with the other organizations and nonprofits in our community. We participated in four Friday Fun Days at the Alliance Public Library which included creating upcycled Valentines Day boxes and upcycled musical instruments. We helped out with seven art workshops put on by the Carnegie for Highland Park Assisted Living and Highland Park Nursing Home. We also partnered with the Carnegie and the Knight Museum to create another bottle cap mural.
At the Alliance Recreation Center we partnered to provide a summer gardening program that reached over 100 kids and grew around a zillion zucchinis (along with other vegetables). We also provided four activities for the ARC’s new Afterschool Program.
Throughout the year we also provided games and activities for the Panhandle Public Health Fair, the Alliance Heritage Days Family Night, the 200 Block Rocks Party, Healthy Kids Day, and the Box Butte County Fair Family Night.
Contests:
One hundred and twenty kids entered our “I Love the Earth” poetry contest for Valentine’s Day. Six students won a blizzard donated by Dairy Queen. One hundred and twenty-seven people participated in our Great American Cleanup Youth Challenge. They contributed 103 hours of volunteer time and cleaned up 18 different areas. One winner was drawn from all of the participants and earned $25 in Chamber Bucks. Fifty-five middle schoolers from Alliance and Hemingford submitted litter prevention videos for our Earth Day Video contest. Sixteen videos were created by the kids, two groups were chosen as winners, and those students received pizzas donated by Sam and Louie’s and t-shirts donated by Shelmadine Print Shop.
Our most recent contest, the scavenger hunt for America Recycles Day saw 185 participants. We facilitated entry turn-in days at five schools to encourage participation. Three winners were drawn and all $185 dollars collected through the contest were distributed to those winners.
To sum it up, I feel pretty good about everything we were able to accomplish this year and education is only one of the many services that KAB has to offer our community. There are new plans for 2019 and I am always open to anyone who wants to reach out and include KAB in their plans. Thank you to all of our partners and the schools who give us time with their kids. We are definitely excited to do even better in 2019!