Month: March 2022

Approaches: Ongoing/ Community Based

CAS Strands and Hours: Service: 7.5 hours—7.5 Hours Total

Types of Service Action: Direct

Targeted Learning Outcomes: Initiative & Planning, Commitment & Perseverance, Collaborative Skills

Description and Goals: For the past four months, I, along with my National Honor Society, have participated in several nighttime food drives for a local church called Derbyshire Place. Here, we have helped to make, package, and deliver bags of boxed food to poor and homeless locals who can eat from Derbyshire for free. Afterward, we offer assistance in the cleanup of cooking supplies for the adult volunteers servicing the event.

Reflection: Having committed 5 nights of my time aiding the Derbyshire food drive, I have been grateful to learn the sheer importance just one person -let alone an entire group- can make for a community in need of life-changing service. Overall, I now find it necessary for a person like myself -who lives an arguably comfortable life- should give back in this way to understand the plight of others and how assisting them could create a miraculous, plentiful change for people in desperation. Even though most nights I would only be scooping food for boxing or gathering plastic bags for packaging, it truly made a difference in the speed our team of people was able to work and, eventually, give more to the community than we initially thought possible.

Supervisor Name, Title, and Email: Derbyshire Place, local church– Email: derbyshireplace@gmail.com

Me at Derbyshire Place

Approaches: Community Based/ School-Based

CAS Strands and Hours: Creativity: 5 hours and Activity: 2 hours—7 Hours Total

Types of Service Action: Direct/ Indirect/ Advocacy

Targeted Learning Outcomes: Challenge & Skills, Commitment & Perseverance,
Collaborative Skills, Ethics of Choices & Actions

Description and Goals: As I am currently preparing to enter the University of Central Florida as a film major, I have been trying my hardest to not only build up a proper portfolio for my own film class but one I can carry with me as I go into college. Furthermore, my goal for this project was to create my own documentary for the incoming IB freshmen for years to follow, which will grant them advice and discussion of program-specific benefits from fellow IB seniors of my 2022 class. In order to do this, the video would first describe what IB entails and what it means to be an IB student. Then, with interviews I created with the help of my friends, I would edit together the final edit of the PSA video. With it, I hope to show the video to my principal in the hopes he will have teachers in future years show the video to their students.

Reflection: With the completion of this project, I have actively utilized my skills as a filmmaker and placement as an IB student to create something beneficial to not just myself, but an uncountable amount of incoming IB freshmen. In reflection, I feel as though I have completed a unique feat of creativity and perseverance, as it would often be complicated to find and interview willing students, whom of which I also had to create personal contacts and work around their schedules. As well as this, the creative aspect could appear daunting at times, as I wanted to be informal with the video without being preachy or argumentative. However, I feel as though the project helped me to find this balance; equality of skills that will be crucial when filmmaking becomes my full-time career.

Supervisor Name, Title, and Email: Dirk Kuiper, Spruce Creek High School film and video teacher–Email: dwkuiper@volusia.k12.fl.us

Screenshots of three interviews found in the video

Approaches: School-Based

CAS Strands and Hours: Creativity: 3 hours and Activity: 2 Hours—5 Hours Total

Types of Service Action: Direct/ Research

Targeted Learning Outcomes: Challenge & Skills, Initiative & Planning, Commitment & Perseverance, Collaborative Skills

Description and Goals: When I had learned of a Christmas door decorating contest occurring in early December, I wanted to help one of my favorite teachers, my art teacher Mr. VandenBerg, win the contest. With the help of my friends, we decided that, of the chosen topic Christmas Cartoons by the contest committee, we would try an original idea by making the door a Peppa Pig Christmas-themed one. In order to accomplish this, my four friends and I would contribute different art supplies such as glue, paper, scissors, and embellishments, as well as spend time each day preparing it for the judging on December 6, 2021.

Reflection: As we had met the due date of the judging and had actually ended up winning first place in the contest, it felt good not only to help my teacher represent his subject of the fine arts for the whole school to see but that I was able to help out my friends with an active effort of fun collaboration. Though the work was often stressful and frequently tedious, the support of group morale helped to finish the project in what became an eventually school-admired piece of art. In doing this, I feel as though I gave something back to my school and helped contribute to a larger effort at hand for the holiday season.

Supervisor Name, Title, and Email: Joseph M. VandenBerg, Spruce Creek High School photography and art teacher–jmvanden@volusia.k12.fl.us

Me working on the project and the final door