Outreach 2023 – Week 4

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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What a busy summer it has been for me and so many youth groups! This week I had the opportunity to organize two new projects.

I started off with the Boys and Girls Club close to their headquarters. We were able to do a downtown sweep, learn the importance of doing our part to “Keep Thomas County Beautiful” and just be overall great citizens!

Before we left the teen center, each student was assigned to make a “thank you” card to hand out to different business owners downtown. I believe the owners were much more excited than us for the great surprise we had in “store” for them!!

As we continued our adventure downtown, we made sure to pick up any trash laying around and even swept the front doors of stores.

That’s not even the best part of our day! We also stopped by numerous storm drains throughout our day and learned more about the importance of how we should keep our areas clean to avoid any unnecessary trash flowing down the drains. Sadly, this was my last project with the Boys & Girls Club as the summer winds down and students are preparing to start back to school!

I have learned so much from them and hope they have learned valuable lessons about doing the small things right regardless if anyone is watching.

Each student now has a valuable place in my book of life and I can’t wait to see how they grow into young adults!

Next up, I ended my week with a brand new group – the Vashti Clubhouse! We had such an amazing time with our senior outreach project with Woodleaf Senior Life Care, which is an organization that provides residency and living experiences for senior citizens.

Students started with a nice icebreaker to help ease them into socializing with someone we may not be so familiar with. Many interesting questions were asked and smiles were definitely shared.

We even took a small break in our activities for a dance session and to listen to hidden talents on the piano!!!

We wrapped up our day outside in their beautiful garden and learned more about what you should pull and not pull when you are taking care of a garden.

Each student and resident left full of smiles and a better understanding of how socializing with someone we may not know or even older than us can brighten someone’s day!!

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.