About Hands4Hope School Clubs
Hands4Hope’s school based club program incorporates our mission by providing opportunities for students to Explore needs in their communities, Act on them by creating, developing and implementing service-learning projects, while offering a variety of opportunities to Lead. The goals for this program include: creating awareness of community needs and inspiring compassion that leads toward meaningful action; offering opportunities for leadership and personal development.
Youth in the Hands4Hope Club program are immediately given the responsibility and power to make decisions on everything from Club policies to Club focus areas, which is what makes Hands4Hope Clubs different from other clubs and organizations.
How It Works
Each Hands4Hope Club explores social issues and areas of need in their community, for example, foster children, wounded vets, homeless, battered women, senior citizens, to name a few. They learn about needs that are not being met, often by bringing in speakers who specialize in those areas. The larger Clubs are broken into committees, each with a focus area.
Once these teams of youth have a better understanding of current needs, as a group, they choose one need to focus on and work to help fill. They come up with a project (drive, fundraiser, outreach, awareness campaign, etc.), plan and implement it, presenting the results of their efforts to their chosen beneficiary (Foster Family Services, New Morning Shelter, a local food bank, etc). Finally, they reflect on what went well/could be improved and celebrate their work.
Each of these service-learning projects offers the opportunity for participating youth to develop a plan of action and timeline, create and manage a budget, and implement projects that support their chosen causes. All school Hands4Hope Clubs meets twice a month at their school, either during school or after school.
Each Hands4Hope Club is run by a leadership team including President, Vice President, Secretary, and Treasurer. Some Clubs have additional leadership roles such as Public Relations Coordinator. The leadership for each Club is voted on by student peers at the end of each school year. Team Hope, Hands4Hope’s elementary club is run by three high school students, who mentor the younger students through outreach activities and projects, using the five stages of service learning. All Clubs are mentored by the H4H youth development coordinator and some of the larger Clubs have additional volunteer advisors to assist with breakout committees.
FYI - You do not have to be in a school club to participant with the Hands4Hope Outreach Program or Youth Committees.
Hands4Hope - Youth Making A Difference
after school committees
About After School Committees
Hands4Hope's after-school project committees incorporate our mission by providing opportunities for students, ranging from 8th grade to 12th grade, to Explore needs in their communities, Act on them by creating, developing and implementing service-learning projects, while offering a variety of opportunities to Lead. The goals for this program include: creating awareness of community needs and inspiring compassion that leads toward meaningful action; offering opportunities for leadership and personal development; and building life skills such as communication, cooperation, problem solving, and budget management.
Participants Will Have the Opportunity to:
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Participate in a real-life leadership experience, where decisions made will have a real impact
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Gain skills in managing a budget
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Understand better how a non-profit operates
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Gain decision-making skills and learn how to work as part of a diverse group
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Gain a better understanding for the struggles some in our community face
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Appreciate the value of service to the community
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Make new friends from different schools and backgrounds
If you are interested in a service-learning project that is not listed and would like to lead a committee in that area, we are always open to ideas. Please email info@hands4hopeyouth.org with your ideas and suggestions.