Power of One Project
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North County Community Services (NCCS) is a non-profit organization that is dedicated to improving the lives of disadvantaged people in the Oceanside and Escondido areas. It operates six child development centers which provide affordable, full-day care for over 840 children and their families, as well as multiple “urban farms” that grow fresh foods for the children. It also operates a food bank which provides food for 18,000 individuals in need each month. To volunteer or donate, go to http://www.sdnccs.org/.
We volunteered for the NCCS child development center on S. Escondido Blvd. as the center part of our Power of One humanities project. In this project, every student in our class was a part of a group that worked with a nonprofit organization working to make a difference in North County. We collaborated with the teachers and site director at the child development center to determine what we could construct for their playground that would help the children play while exercising their creativity and motor skills. We then spent the next few weeks designing various products that we could construct, and creating a crowdfunding campaign supplemented by generous discounts from Lowe's Hardware. We eventually planned and built a series of traffic signs and signals to be placed around their play area, a small table covered in chalkboard paint, a play box decorated like a pirate ship, and a table with a recirculating water pump (which unfortunately leaked too much to present that day). In the final week, we directed a class of about 25 students in the products’ construction, and concluded our project by presenting the products to the kids at NCCS.
In addition to constructing our products for the child development center, we spent two days at the beginning of the project at NCCS’ urban farm in Oceanside. There, we worked with the garden manager to carry out two small projects. The first was removing the front panels of the existing composting boxes in order to make it easier to put fresh compost in and remove decayed material. The second was building a trommel compost sifter, which is a rotating barrel of wire mesh that is far more efficient than traditional methods of sifting compost.
Doing this project, we learned not only how helping people can make a difference but how important it is to help our community. During our work at NCCS, we were in contact with a few “change-makers” who are trying to make a difference in the community, such as the site director and garden manager. While working at the urban farm, we learned how to grow and maintain crops, why composting is effective in crop health, how to use tools properly, and how to make a compost bin. Working with the child development center taught us how children think and play, and honed our communication, public outreach, logistical thinking, and leadership skills. In this project, we actually went out into our community and made a difference, and we learned or improved many important collaborative skills in the process.
We volunteered for the NCCS child development center on S. Escondido Blvd. as the center part of our Power of One humanities project. In this project, every student in our class was a part of a group that worked with a nonprofit organization working to make a difference in North County. We collaborated with the teachers and site director at the child development center to determine what we could construct for their playground that would help the children play while exercising their creativity and motor skills. We then spent the next few weeks designing various products that we could construct, and creating a crowdfunding campaign supplemented by generous discounts from Lowe's Hardware. We eventually planned and built a series of traffic signs and signals to be placed around their play area, a small table covered in chalkboard paint, a play box decorated like a pirate ship, and a table with a recirculating water pump (which unfortunately leaked too much to present that day). In the final week, we directed a class of about 25 students in the products’ construction, and concluded our project by presenting the products to the kids at NCCS.
In addition to constructing our products for the child development center, we spent two days at the beginning of the project at NCCS’ urban farm in Oceanside. There, we worked with the garden manager to carry out two small projects. The first was removing the front panels of the existing composting boxes in order to make it easier to put fresh compost in and remove decayed material. The second was building a trommel compost sifter, which is a rotating barrel of wire mesh that is far more efficient than traditional methods of sifting compost.
Doing this project, we learned not only how helping people can make a difference but how important it is to help our community. During our work at NCCS, we were in contact with a few “change-makers” who are trying to make a difference in the community, such as the site director and garden manager. While working at the urban farm, we learned how to grow and maintain crops, why composting is effective in crop health, how to use tools properly, and how to make a compost bin. Working with the child development center taught us how children think and play, and honed our communication, public outreach, logistical thinking, and leadership skills. In this project, we actually went out into our community and made a difference, and we learned or improved many important collaborative skills in the process.