Semester Service Project

            For our Honors Colloquium class this semester, each person has to do a community service project that takes up at least 20 hours of his or her time and that has to do with his or her interests. My classmates are all doing really interesting projects. There is one creating a book on stress relievers, another making a suicide awareness video, a small group knitting scarves for the homeless, a couple volunteering at the local hospitals, one making buttons to raise awareness about sexuality, and the list goes on. With my interest in running and music, I had no idea what I could do. Thankfully, John, a nutrition major and also an ultra-marathoner in the class, asked if I wanted to join up with him to do a project together.

            So, our project will be to join our knowledge of living a healthy life to teach to members of the community. We are hoping to be able to go to local schools around the area and teach kids either in the regular physical education classes or athletes on teams like cross country or track or both about living active, healthy lives. We would discuss topics such as: nutrition/eating healthily, injury prevention, getting and staying motivated to exercise, why being active is important, and why we run, hoping to encourage people to be more fit. We are hoping to get to all age groups—elementary, middle, and high school. Of course, we would have to vary what and how we taught based on the age group, but I think the earlier we can get kids regularly exercising and eating well the better.

            Our first step is to email the schools around us. This will enable us to make sure we could even come to the schools in the first place, allow for us to discuss timing and days when we got permission, and then work out any other specifics that may come up. After we got the ok from the principles, John and I would have to really plan out what we would say and how we would go about teaching it. A PowerPoint may work for the older kids, but not so much the younger kids, so we would have to figure out how to accommodate for the ages. Once we get all that figured out, we would proceed to go to the schools and teach the kids.

Hopefully, all goes well with our plan. We do have some backup plans in case this one falls through, but I really hope we can do this. I think this would be really fun, because this kind of project is a lot like what I want to end up doing as a personal trainer. I want to help get and maintain motivation in people to help them achieve the level of health they desire. This kind of service project would not only be good for the kids to learn, but also for me to get some experience.