Verena Joerger was about 11-years-old when she had her first taste of volunteer work. “My Mom took me to do Meals-on-Wheels with her,” said the eighth grader at the Newark Center for Creative Learning. “I remember the people’s happy faces, smiles, and of course, the hug an elderly lady gave me after I handed her meal to her.”

 

Joerger wondered why there were few volunteer opportunities for younger kids? “That was my real inspiration for the Making-a-Difference volunteer club,” Joerger said.

 

After seeing service clubs featured during visits to high school open-house events, Joerger proposed an elementary service club to teacher Kate Kerrane. “She said, ‘Okay, great! You’re in charge!’ “ Joerger recalled.

 

Because of scheduling differences for the lower grades and the age restrictions for many volunteer opportunities, Joerger and Kerrane decided to offer the club to fifth through eighth graders. However, a lot of the club’s projects still involved in-school assistance from the younger students at NCCL.

 

At their first meeting, the students decided to have a winter clothing drive. The coats, hats, gloves and scarves that the school collected went to the Oasis Soup Kitchen in Salem, N.J. to be handed out to needy families. Since then, approximately 26 students at NCCL, more than 60 percent of the middle school class, have worked on club projects. “Our current project is a Family Bingo Night at the school to benefit the Newark Senior Center,” Joerger said.

 

As always, Kerrane has left planning and executing every aspect of the event, from figuring how many tables and chairs will fit into the gym, advertising to the school community, coming up with prizes and running the event that evening, in the hands of the students. “One of NCCL’s philosophies is, ‘Involve me, I understand,’ “ Kerrane explained. “I am continually impressed with the optimism and enthusiasm of the students. They truly believe that they can make a difference in the lives of others.” Despite having worked with the students, Kerrane was amazed at the amount of that difference when she sat down to make a list of projects the students had conceived and run since November 2006.

 

• Collected 41 coats, 19 pairs of mittens/gloves, 11 hats and eight scarves in the winter clothing drive.
• Sorted 55 boxes of food at the Food Bank of Delaware.
• Packed 216 weekend bags for children at the Food Bank of Delaware.
• Delivered meals for Meals-on-Wheels.
• With the help of younger kids in the school, decorated more than 200 lunch bags with hopeful messages and pictures for Meals-on-Wheels.
• Baked six dozen, dog biscuits for the Delaware Humane Association.
• Collected three large boxes of needed items for the Delaware Humane Association.
• Played Bingo with seniors at the Newark Senior Center.
• Picked up trash at Phillips Park and along the walking trail.
• Scrubbed walls at the Emmaus House homeless shelter.
• Made paper doves with holiday messages and messages of peace that they handed out in “random acts of  kindness” to people on the University of Delaware campus and Main Street in Newark.
• Put together 40 backpacks for the Junior Woman’s Club in Woodstown, N.J. to give to foster kids.

 

The school year is not over, yet, but Joerger is already thinking about next year when she has gone on to Conrad High School of Science in the Red Clay Consolidated School District. “I am hoping that after I graduate from NCCL that it becomes a tradition to have the Making-a-Difference Club,” she said.

 

By Mary E. Petzak

Newark Post

March 16, 2007