By Michael Melling, Learning Lab Elementary Teacher
On Tuesday night, February 1, Jacob Klingensmith brought a donation of approximately 500 books to the Learning Lab. Jacob is a high school student in the metro area working on becoming an Eagle Scout. One of the hurdles in achieving the honor of an Eagle Scout is planning, organizing, and carrying out a service project. Having ties to Urban Ventures through our grant writer, Beth Becker, Jacob decided to plan a book drive to benefit the Learning Lab.
Jacob started with writing up his plan to be approved by the Scout board. Once approved, he needed to figure out a way to pull it off. He dropped grocery bags off around his neighborhood and let the neighbors know about the service project and the program they were going to help. He later went back and collected around 500 books, which he delivered to a group of Learning Lab kids.
Jacob had a chance to share the process with the kids who were themselves familiar with planning and organizing small service projects in the Learning Lab. Jacob also brought some Scouts with him, and each had a chance to share the books with the elementary group at the Learning Lab. The kids were excited to see some great titles. One group of third and fourth grade boys was found drooling over the pages and pages of custom motorcycles in an Orange County Choppers book.
The Learning Lab is extremely grateful to Jacob and Troop 906 for the hard work and great payoff.
