As one chapter closes, another one opens

5 busy computers. 4 month internship. 3 graduating interns. 2 major events. And 1 amazing experience.

Can you believe that 2013 is finishing up and 2014 will be here before we know it!? This will be the final blog post from your AMF fall interns. We have 4 new faces that will be taking over starting in January and they will have the chance to tell their own stories each week through their blog posts.

We have been passionately following the Service Challenge Projects for the last 2 months and are extremely impressed with each school’s drive, compassion, and excitement in helping to better the community by getting “Plugged In.”

Finneytown High School is currently working on a project of opening a food pantry at their school for the entire year, instead of just around Thanksgiving and Christmas time. The students are working with the PTA for a grant in order to be able to better the lives of others and make an impact in their community.

Lebanon High School has been taking advantage of #AMFChallenge by tweeting pictures of their project of starting a homework club and tutoring local children. The picture shows the tutors teaching multiplication tricks to students  who may be struggling in the subject. The plan for this project is that the homework club will continue throughout the whole year and hopefully become a new yearly program at Lebanon.

Deer Park High School has confirmed that their project is going to be a 5k for suicide awareness taking place on Saturday, January 11^th. Deer Park recognized a problem in their area and is doing something to bring awareness to this important topic. This will be a great event to start 2014 off on a strong note and will hopefully be one of the first projects that AMF staff members will be able to visit in January.

These are just some of the projects that continue to inspire us each day. Working closely with each of your schools has been a great opportunity, and one that we are so thankful we got to experience. As we finish our final few projects in the office, we hope you take the time to reflect and realize which Service Challenge Project is most inspiring for you. We don’t want Service Challenge Projects to end even though the semester is coming to a close. As students, you get the next two weeks off to spend time with your family and friends, enjoy the holidays, play in the snow, and think about how you can continue to inspire your community!

Becky Griesmer
Impact Intern
#AMFChallenge

Starting the New Year with Service Challenge Projects

Just because 2013 is almost over doesn’t mean Service Challenge projects are!

With 2014 in sight we are getting ready for our second round of Service Challenge Tours! Once we get back from Christmas break we will have a new batch schools and projects to visit. Isn’t this a great way to start the New Year?

There are some really great projects to start off the year! Aiken High School will be hosting a week of awareness to Stop the Violence (Gun Violence) that is occurring in their community. Within the past two years Aiken High School has lost nine students to gun violence and by having this week of awareness they hope it result in a change of behavior throughout their community. During this week they will be having rallies with guest speakers and a few different after-school activities such as a celebrity basketball game and also a concert with positive Rap groups.

Ross High School will be focusing on putting a 5k in 2014 during the spring quarter. The 5k will create awareness for juvenile diabetes. Not only will this event create awareness, but will give Ross the opportunity to honor a seven-year-old student that recently passed away. We can’t wait to see the end results in your Service Challenge project and hope you keep us updated with pictures and videos!

Don’t forget that we will be choosing two winners of the Service Challenge project this upcoming April! First place will win $2000 and the ability to be the first group to ride the Banshee, the new 2014 King’s Island ride and second place will win $1,000. The winnings will allow the students to continue making an ever-lasting impact in their community. You’ll want to be sure to keep us updated through Twitter using #AMFChallenge with your project details so we can visit your school to see your project in action.

Megan Barger
Experience Intern
#AMFChallenge

Students look to make a lasting impact

Over time, projects develop, service plans are altered, and new ideas are formed for the Service Challenge Projects. By getting “Plugged In” at the 2013 Youth Leadership Seminar, many students decided that it was time for them to “stand up” and make a difference in their community. The second annual “Giving Tuesday” is on December 3, 2013, and with the holiday season quickly approaching, we are very proud that our students give back throughout the entire year and not just during the “giving season.” 

Turpin High School was inspired to create 9-1-1 for Fun, where their seniors played a basketball game against local members of the Fire and Police units. Following the game, there were sandwiches 

provided by Chick-fil-A, and a chance for students and community members to hear stories from members of each unit and to give thanks for all of their hard work. This was AMF’s second school visit on November 26^th and we could not be more inspired by the students at Turpin who came out to support such a great cause.

In 2012, Anderson High School also hosted a basketball game to raise money and awareness for Pelizaeus-Merzbacker Disease, a rare, degenerative central nervous system disorder in which coordination, motor abilities, and intellectual function deteriorates. Anderson is sticking with the sports theme and decided that their project for this year will be a community dodgeball event to raise community spirits and to provide funds for Mitch’s Mission, a non-profit organization that gives scholarships to send children with cancer to summer camp.

Norwood High School also continued with a similar theme from their project idea from last year, through supporting the children in the community by planning to host a science-outreach event for the elementary students of their school district. This project is an extension of their 2012 project where they focused on cleaning up and planting flowers along Mill Creek, as part of the restoration project.

Oyler High School focused on making their community better in 2012 through their efforts to sell calendars to raise money to adopt two families for the Christmas season. They took family portraits and presented these photos at a community dinner. This year, Oyler has decided to focus their efforts inward and hold an anti-bullying/violence week to help stop this issue within the walls of the high school.

Our Service Challenge Winner last year was Bracken County High School with their “It Can Wait!” campaign to discourage students from distracted driving.  They reached over 1500 students with the campaign’s events and the weeklong activities included themed days to focus on different types of distracted driving, a real car that had been involved in a distracted driving accident resulting in a fatality, and texting while driving simulators.  Bracken continued their desire to make a difference and have developed their new project for 2013 of “Spread the word to End the Word” (to eliminate the word retard), which will take place December 9^th-13^th. Bracken will be partnering with Pine Ridge Pine Village Homes for much of the week to bring mentally and physically challenged individuals and their workers to do a presentation for the students. There will be stations that are set up in the gym to simulate handicaps, such as being blindfolded, wheel chair obstacle course, ear muffs for deafness, etc. Finally, there will be a pledge table set up for students to sign up that they can “End the Word.”

Whether a school has developed a new idea for their Service Challenge or found ways to expand past projects, as long as students are getting “Plugged In” to their community, the world will continue to be touched by inspirational students looking to make a lasting impact.

Becky Griesmer
Impact Intern
#AMFChallenge