Even though the future of Bruin Block is still undecided, juniors are busy at work with their Bruin Block service project. With acts of service ranging from creating blankets for Rock Bridge Reaches Out Core Linus to cleaning up streams during lunch, juniors were given the opportunity to improve the community.
Junior Claudia Dunscombe opted to go solo on her service project of creating Linus blankets because her practice schedule for soccer offered little time for collaboration. Her Bruin Block teacher Mike Pierson encouraged his students to discover the benefits of volunteering with an open mind, leading to Dunscombe’s hour and a half mission of completing her Linus blanket.
“It seemed that [Mr. Pierson] really wanted us to do it, not just because it was assigned, but because it’s a good thing to do; to go beyond what you normally do for yourself and to help out others,” Dunscombe said. “An hour and a half seems like a lot, but if you had a lot of people to make Linus blankets with, it’s something small that you could do that could really change the life of somebody who doesn’t have a blanket or anything to keep warm. It’s so cool that you can just take 30 minutes out of your day if you get together with other people and change somebody’s life.”
The Bruin Block committee, which includes student support counselor Melissa Coil, biology teacher Kaitlin Rulon, math teacher Amanda Dablemont and science teacher Amy McKenzie, as well as a few other teachers, wanted to provide students with the time and means to become more involved in volunteering around the community.
“Basically, the way that Bruin Block is structured, we want every grade level to progress and be different. So, it kind of started with giving juniors more options and more freedom than what sophomores or freshmen would have,” Dablemont said. “Freshmen are doing things within their Bruin Block, sophomores are splitting out to their passions. Then, the juniors are doing their individual project. So it’s a progression of doing it with your Bruin Block, going away from your Bruin Block, but still being within your class, to a junior system where it’s more individual freedom, release time, if you do it outside of class, that sort of thing.”
Since some of the student body is unable to participate in clubs and other service projects, the Bruin Block committee thought that it would be a good use of time and effort to give all students a taste of volunteering.
“Our whole mission statement of Rock Bridge, service is in there and not everybody is in a club,” Bruin Block committee member Amanda Dablemont said. “Bruin Block is kind of an avenue to ensure our students A, understand the importance of service, and to B, be able to carry it out and there are some really cool things going on.”
Choosing to carry out a more interactive service project, junior Connor Fitzmaurice set up a GameCube Booth from Monday, March 2 to Friday, March 6. To play, interested students paid a dollar which would guarantees them the chance to play at least one game or until another student paid a dollar to take their seat. Fitzmaurice’s GameCube booth not only gave him a platform to use his new GameCube, but it also brought out the perks of service projects.
“Some money goes to charity for one,” Fitzmaurice said. “Two, a lot of people were entertained for the week. School can be stressful, but whenever people are playing GameCube, it calms them down some.”
With the success of this year’s run of service projects, the Bruin Block committee is hoping to keep it in the curriculum, should Bruin Block still be a part of schedules in the coming year. The uncertainty of its future halted conversation for future lesson plans, preventing the committee from designing the curriculum for senior year Bruin Block.
“Really, we haven’t had a chance this year to envision what that senior year would look like,” Dablemont said. “I think we’ve done a really good job with making the progression from freshmen, sophomore, [to] junior. If it sticks around, that will be our sole focus going into next year.”[TS_VCSC_Image_Hover_Effects hover_image=”272438″ effect_style_type=”text” effect_style_text=”ts-hover-effect-jazz” effect_style_icons=”ts-hover-effect-zoe” effect_permanent=”false” title_color=”#ffffff” content_color_text=”#ffffff” content_color_other=”#ffffff” content_color_icons=”#000000″ overlay_handle_show=”true” overlay_handle_color=”#2bb673″ hover_event=”none” hover_show_title=”true” hover_video_related=”false” hover_video_auto=”true” tooltip_html=”false” tooltipster_offsetx=”0″ tooltipster_offsety=”0″ margin_top=”0″ margin_bottom=”0″ content_text=”Before”][TS_VCSC_Image_Hover_Effects hover_image=”272439″ effect_style_type=”text” effect_style_text=”ts-hover-effect-jazz” effect_style_icons=”ts-hover-effect-zoe” effect_permanent=”false” title_color=”#ffffff” content_color_text=”#ffffff” content_color_other=”#ffffff” content_color_icons=”#000000″ overlay_handle_show=”true” overlay_handle_color=”#2bb673″ hover_event=”none” hover_show_title=”true” hover_video_related=”false” hover_video_auto=”true” tooltip_html=”false” tooltipster_offsetx=”0″ tooltipster_offsety=”0″ margin_top=”0″ margin_bottom=”0″ content_text=”After”]By Alice Yu
Juniors picked up trash around the baseball fields and near Bethel Park during their lunch Thursday, March 12. With a wide array of service projects to choose from, juniors spent their Bruin Blocks working with others or by themselves to either raise money for charity or improve the community. photos by Emily Zaner.