Worthwhile projects from Sunnyvale Welcome Center for our club to consider

Ellie Goldberg and staff from the Sunnyvale Welcome Center has given us this list of worthwhile and much needed service projects for our club to consider. Excited to talk about these projects at our next business meeting!

To contact Ellie directly: EllieG@aau-slc.org or 801-590-9746

1.       Projects that need funding:

a.       We are in need of an Interpreting Fund. Although English is the official language of the center as we help build the language capacities of our students and families, we need funding to pay interpreters.  Activities in which we need interpreters and translators include our bi-monthly partnership with the Mobile Health Clinic, home visits with families, parent engagement nights, tobacco prevention activities, and outreach for all new and existing programs.  Interpreters and translators cost $25/hour. 

We calculate that for the Mobile Health Clinic interpreting, we will need 2-3 interpreters for 6 hours in February, April, June, August, October, and December totaling between $1800-$2700.  Is assisting families receiving free basic health care something the club would want to support?

2.       Item drives:

a.       A lot of our kids need shoes and boots appropriate for the winter. We currently have lots of kids wearing flip flops and sandals in the cold weather. I connected with a girl who works at a shoe store who could measure the kids and then Rotary could do a drive for the shoes.

b.      We are in need of a new whiteboard in the back classroom. We were so pleased to receive the wet erase board from your club (through U of U surplus), however, over the past year, it has literally ‘eaten’ every marker we’ve used on it. We would really benefit from having a dry erase board (used or new) instead of a wet erase that tends to be not-user friendly.

c.       We are always using our school supplies and could use a drive for crayons, pencils, erasers, markers, glue, kid scissors, rulers, flashcards, workbooks/coloring books, educational movies, construction paper, notebooks, binders, etc.

d.      Youth incentives:  each day, we give the youth incentives for good behavior, good grades, helping each other and the teachers, etc. We could use things like small gift cards ($5), chapstick, lotion, earbuds (they have them at the dollar store!), small toys, baseball caps, colored pens, etc.

3.       Hands-on service:

a.       Schedule a project a month till the end of 2014: The third Thursday of the month would be good for us. We can come up with ideas monthly, based on whether or not you are also doing a drive or what your needs are for the month. 

b.      We do need babysitters for our upcoming Financial Literacy class with the Somali Community. Starting February 21, we will need babysitters every Friday from 6-7pm (for 8 weeks). We provide materials, snacks, supplies, toys, etc.  We would need the babysitters to fill out a volunteer application/background check if they haven’t done this already.

c.        We need people to drive families to Parent Teacher Conferences at Roosevelt, Granite Park Jr. High, and Cottonwood High School the week of February 10^th. (Days TBA, times from 4-7pm). We require that drivers provide us with their driver’s license, car insurance so we can make a copy for the file and waive liability. 

d.      We love to take the kids on field trips and could use assistance getting the kids to Jazz Games, U of U sports activities, and other recreational activities that your club could sponsor.