Builders Clubs’ mission is to teach youth leadership through service. Planning and taking part in service projects is a great way for club members to gain leadership skills and make a difference in the community. There are service needs all around your community and even in local schools or organizations. A great goal is to plan projects that cover these three categories:
Who or what do you want to help? You could choose to help preschool children, the elderly, the community as a whole or its animal population. Use the Project Interview Guide to find out where help is needed.
Select a service to provide to your chosen community. For the elderly, for example, you could choose to make cards. For animals, as another example, you could play with puppies and kittens at a shelter to socialize them. Here are examples of other K-Kids club projects.
Select the site where you wish to conduct the project. Card-making, for example, could be staged where your club meets. For animal projects, however, choose an animal shelter that is close to your club.
Get the whole club on board. Present the service project idea to the club and choose someone to be the leader of the event.
Form a committee to plan the rest of the project. Also during this stage, the club should set SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Timely) goals for the project.
Meet with the person in charge of the project site. At this meeting, explain the goals of the project and how you plan to accomplish them. Remember to review the goals you have set with your club advisor.
Begin promoting the project. Display posters around school. Check out the posters included in your K-Kids program kit. Write a script that can be used during morning announcements.
The project itself! Make sure everyone knows what their role is and what time to arrive. Organize club members in pairs or groups.
Evaluate how the project unfolded, what went well, what went wrong, ways to improve.
Reflect and discuss what you learned from the experience. Use this reflection tool.