The Torrey Pines Elementary School Education Foundation (TPESF) recently won “Outstanding Community Service Project” in the PTO Today Magazine parent group search.
“That was just great,” said Amanda Friedman, who started Kids Care Club (KCC). “We didn’t even know we were up for that.”
KCC sponsors monthly events, from participation in a food drive for Mama’s Kitchen to creation of activity bags for patients at Rady Children’s Hospital to painting over urban graffiti and helping the Audubon Society weed out nesting sites for an endangered bird.
“We just had this huge turnout ” 125 full bags of groceries that we were able to donate and 250 activity bags,” Friedman said. “We had 30 or 40 kids come to the graffiti paint-out.”
Teachers choose two student leaders from among interested third-, fourth- and fifth-graders who have submitted a short essay.
Last year Friedman and five other parent leaders guided the students. This year, Janet Murphy, a longtime teacher in the school and now a stay-at-home mom, has assumed that role.
They nurture the potential they see in the kids because it is not every day one gets leadership opportunities at an elementary school level.
“That can be one of those qualities that can sort of die on the vine if you don’t give it some attention,” said Shannon Wineman, TPESF past president and current parent leader.
There was no award provided for participation in the program.
“We really wanted the kids to get that it’s the giving that’s rewarding,” Wineman said. “Not a single complaint out of these kids not earning something back; they totally got it.”
The foundation serves in place of a teacher organization or PTA and raises money to provide art, music and physical education funding, as well as extra teachers to keep the fourth- and fifth-grade classes small.
“I was serving on that foundation and one of the arms of the foundation was a program called FACE (Family and Community Events),” Friedman said, adding that as coordinator, she decided to start a community service organization.
With many privileged kids in the school, she felt it would be beneficial to have a program that taught them the value and joy of giving and working within the community.
“We got some money from this award so we are using that money to offer the kids ” the leaders this year ” a leadership class or workshop,” Friedman said. “They’re going to be learning about team building and peer pressure and all sorts of ways to get ahead in their current environment.”
She said the program was unique because the kids were the leaders and were pivotal in getting other students excited, who in turn shared that delight with their parents.
“They [the kids] really felt a sense of achievement and that they were making a difference,” Friedman said. “That was one reason why it was successful. We also just have this amazing community at our school of parents working together and the kids are just a banner group of kids.”
With several hundred entries from across the country to choose from, the PTO Today judges had a difficult decision narrowing down the winners to ten different categories.
There was no question about the TPESF’s award-winning project.
“We liked it especially because it had a learning component for students ” they went out and did hands-on community service projects, they worked with parents in a lot of instances, so there was that parent involvement element, which is very important and also that it was varied and continuous,” said Craig Bystrynski, editor-in-chief of PTO Today. “They did a really nice job.”
For more information, visit www.tpesfoundation.org.