Outreach 2023 – Week 3

Welcome to one of several summer 2023 Project Impact Outreach recaps from our Project Impact ROI intern. Project Impact ROI is an annual program designed to engage local high-school seniors and college-age students in community service, and expand our SHOTC youth summer programming and outreach. In return, the intern gains valuable leadership experience, credit hours (if applicable), and a monetary award. Know a student (18+) who would make a great intern candidate for Project Impact ROI? Click here for information.

My name is Jennifer Coleman, and I am the 2023 Hands On Thomas County Impact ROI intern!

I am a graduate of Thomas County Central High School and am currently a senior at Thomas University. I am also on the Thomas University Track & Field team as a Thrower. I currently hold six school records, which is the most by a female in program history!

I am excited to be this year’s HOTC intern and look forward to the opportunity to not only mentor youth and provide guidance but also give back to a community that has given so much to me since I was a toddler.

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Hey everyone! Another week full of service learning and activities is in the books!

I started my week with the Boys and Girls Club at Hands and Hearts for Horses, which is an organization that provides therapeutic riding and hippotherapy to participants with disabilities and challenges. Each student learned more about how horses are used to provide physical and occupational therapy in people’s daily lives.

It was such a cool experience interacting with the horses up close and personal! The Boys and Girls Club participants were able to groom a few horses and learn more about what goes into maintaining the horses to keep a well-balanced lifestyle.

We then ended the day with some truly hands-on experience by side-walking with riders and helping them play games on horseback! Side walking is a term used for people who hold the saddle of a horse for safety reasons while there is a rider guiding the horse around.

After a fun-filled day at Hands and Hearts for Horses, I returned to one of my favorite spots on Wednesday – the Scott Senior Center! This was the first time that the Thomasville Community Resource Center youth has been there and they were ecstatic about the new adventure!

They were able to learn the importance of socializing with seniors in our community and about how one small act of kindness can brighten someone’s entire week.

We started with a nice devotion and headed straight into our exercises – everyone was pumped up and excited about our arts and crafts projects after that!

As groups wrapped up their smile cards, they had the chance to make a memory collage board from magazine clippings of their favorite things. It was a pleasure to see how diverse everybody’s collage came out!

We then had a rotation going outside in the garden that we have been tending for over a month – and let me tell you – there has been so much progress done within the last few weeks!

I believe that my favorite part about the entire week was seeing the smiles on everybody’s faces. Sometimes taking a moment to appreciate the small things in life, feeling blessed to make such a big contribution in several ways within our community, and having fun is very rewarding!

Special thanks to these Diamond Level & above Sponsors, The Thomasville Antiques Show Foundation, and all of our donors and sponsors for making volunteer programs and events like these possible.