Crescent View Middle School students find lifetime friends during day of service

About 200 Crescent View Middle School students recently had the opportunity to “buddy up” with 400 young children in the Salt Lake Head Start program at the James R. Russell Center in Rose Park in Salt Lake City.

“The Head Start Program serves children below the poverty level,” Canyons District spokesperson Jennifer Toomer-Cook said. “Crescent View Middle School is big on service learning and wanted to have a day of service to give to these kids to benefit them.”

Students were divided up and went into the classrooms where they befriended the children, read to them, did activities with them and even took them outside to do art, soccer, dance, etc. clinics with them.

Afterward, the students performed in a talent show for the children where they sang and played musical instruments.

“It was fun because we have some pretty talented students,” Greg Leavitt, Crescent View’s principal, said.

The day of service, valued at $21,000, wasn’t only about having fun with the kids. Crescent View students planted about 1,000 square feet of sod, put bark down in the planters and made sure the school was a clean place for the children to be.

The most noticeable impact Ken Smikahl, a science teacher at CVMS, observed was how well the students and young children bonded together. “At first, the kids were a little intimidated, but within minutes, they were showing them [the volunteers] stuff in the classroom and grabbing out their favorite books,” he said. “It was really cool how quickly they all adapted to each other.”

Students really enjoyed this opportunity and have already been asking when they can go back again. “It all paid off when their teachers told us how happy they were that we came and how impressed they were by our students,” Smikahl said.

Crescent View administrators and staff have been talking about what a success this day was for both the middle school students as well as the Head Start children. They are looking forward to planning a day when they can go back and do the same thing with these children again in the spring, once the weather gets nice again.

Until then, students plan to stay in touch with the children by doing a Sub-for-Santa and a canned food drive that they will send to them.

“We want to give them a reminder at Christmas that we are thinking about them,” Smikahl said. “This was really just a great day for all involved.”