We are so thankful for the opportunities we have gotten to get to work along side Kinbridge Community Center in Cambridge and see all the incredible work their team is doing in our community.

I have been blessed with the chance to get to volunteer in their after school programs at Stewart Avenue Public School and through that have gotten to know the children in the program.

In this project we have come face to face with a lot of road blocks and rejection. It has been discouraging at times t say the least; so when a child from the after school program saw me in the halls at Stewart while I was there for something else and ran to give me a hug it filled me with so much joy. It was a beautiful reminder that what I am doing has a perpus and has made an impact in some way or another. I am so thankful for the relationships I have been able to develop though this program.

-Danae- East Street.

We are so incredibly thankful for the chances we have gotten to work with Chalmers Street Public School in multiple different ways. One way I have gotten to be involved is through the Helping Hands club that runs once a week during the students first nutrition break. Students in grades 5&6 are broken up into different “service groups” and given tasks to do around the school. This can include helping in kindergarten rooms to doing cleaning tasks to running group games in the gym for some of the younger grades.

I’ve had the chance to join groups of these students and simply be present as they take charge and develop their leadership skills. It is so much fun to watch these children grow and to develop relationships with them as the weeks go on. It’s also so cool to see these children have a real heart for helping others and giving up their free time to serve wherever is needed throughout their school.

-Ria

Something all of us in this project are incredibly passionate (and really what brought about this project to begin with) is meeting the needs of the community as we see them. As we began to get more and more excited about the warmer weather we also started to notice something troubling about our neighborhoods. The amount of trash that appeared as the snow began melting was disturbing to say the least. We very quickly found this was not something we could simply ignore or wait for someone else to take care of. With a mindset of bettering our neighborhood we set out with trash bags and began cleaning up our streets.

Something that we noticed while walking around tuned into an amazing opportunity to get to know a few people who live around us. Chats with neighbors sprung up from simply running into people on the street while picking up garbage. It has been so cool to see something negative like litter turn into chances to get to know those around us!

-East & Elgin

In February we had an opportunity to help with a special event at Moffat Creek and meet a bunch of students, teachers and parent council members. One of the teachers we met runs the Strong Start program at Moffat Creek.

Strong start is a program that gives children a chance to practice their reading skills in a fun and safe environment. After hearing about the program we followed up with the teacher and enrolled in the training program to become volunteer coaches for Strong Start.

Over the past few weeks we have been blessed to work with some amazing children and see them grow in both their knowledge and confidence and have been able to form meaningful relationships with them.

-Elgin Street Lighthouse