Six Westbrook Regional Vocational Center students got real-life work experience this year when they planned and organized the sixth annual summit of a youth community service organization that took place late last week.
KIDS – Kids Involved Doing Service – Consortium is a non-profit organization based in Lewiston that works to get kids involved in activities to help their communities. One way the organization does that is working to bring “service-learning” to schools across New England. Service-learning promotes community service as part of education.
In the case of the six Westbrook vocational center kids, their service-learning project for the year was to plan the two-day 2006 KIDS Consortium student summit, which took place on Thursday and Friday at the University of Southern Maine’s Gorham campus. The summit brings together students, parents and teachers from all over New England to celebrate service-learning projects done throughout the year by students in KIDS.
Many of the students get to make presentations of the projects they did during the year. The summit also gives them an opportunity to learn more about opportunities to help their communities.
With some support from their office technology teacher but mostly on their own, the six Westbrook juniors and seniors planned all the workshops, recruited all the presenters and scheduled all the entertainment. They also developed materials for the presentations, handled the technologies, fixed glitches, and served as emcees for the event.
“These high school business students have worked on the logistics, management, marketing, coordinating, and all other factors that go toward putting on a two-day conference for students, their parents, teachers, and guests,” said KIDS founder and President Marvin Rosenblum.
“We learned how to make professional phone calls and letters and e-mails,” said senior Jessica Herrick. “Stuff that we would need for any type of business we would run.”
Senior Cayla Ross said they learned how to communicate better through the experience. “We also learned to work under pressure,” she said.
The students said it was a difficult task ensuring all the details of the summit came together smoothly, both beforehand and during the event. According to senior Ryan Dumond, they had to make sure all the presentations were up and running correctly during the event and handle any glitches that inevitably came up. He also said they even had to react to a cancellation of one of the presenters in the week approaching the event.
“You can’t just let things go,” he said. “We kept on top of it, even making calls the week before to workshop presenters, ‘Just double-checking you’re coming.'”
KIDS Director Fran Rudoff said this year’s event was the best of the six they’ve had so far. “I have nothing but high praise for the Westbrook students who took on an enormous challenge and did a fantastic job,” she said.
The kids’ office technology teacher, Brenda Hamilton, agreed with Rudoff. “They’ve done a great job,” she said. “I think it’s a great experience for them. They became conference planners. I couldn’t have duplicated it with a pretend work order.”
This year was the third time students have planned the summit, which was planned by KIDS staff its first three years. This is the first year students from Westbrook got to do the planning. The first year was done by students at a junior high in Minot and the second by Greely High School, according to Tracy Harkins of KIDS. She said the summit attracted about 250 students, from kindergarteners to high school seniors, each day from all over New England, as well as parents and other educators.
Besides the various workshops, the students also had the opportunity to listen to Attorney General Steve Rowe as the keynote speaker and Randy Judkins as the featured entertainment. The theme of the event was “Youth UNITE,” which stands for Understanding Needs, Impact Today’s Efforts.
Studets get real-life experience planning event
Studets get real-life experience planning event
Studets get real-life experience planning event
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