Bell Ringing!

Fire Relief Help

Tonight, we rolled up our sleeves and helped out at the district technology warehouse, the temporary shelter for goods donated to the Fire Relief effort in response to the big fire last week. 

After getting initial instructions, we dug into the bags and bags and bags of clothing, bedding, and food, 

which all needed to be sorted, boxed, and prepared for distribution or storage.

We worked for an hour and a half and made a good dent, but there is so much left to do!

While it wasn't a typical meeting for us, it was satisfying to know we made a difference.

There's a lot left to do. If you'd like to help, please call the PACE office.

Difference Makers Update

Tonight we sent an email to a lady who has been very good to us by donating money to pay for our Relay for Life registration fee. We also made place mats for the elderly who will be going to the PACE Christmas dinner. We also set up bell ringing and set a time to go Ding-dong-ditch-decorate.

We worked...

But we also played...

Til next time...

Fun, As Usual!

Mrs. Forsberg here....

On Tuesday, we had our Run/Walk Against Cancer. The turnout wasn't great, but we did earn $106 for our Relay for Life Team, and we had a great time.

We also got a new member, Brianna!!

Even though we "met" on Tuesday, the Difference Maker students still wanted to meet on our usual day (Thursday), too. I was sooooo tired!  I just wanted to go home, but I knew I couldn't, so I sucked it up. I'm very glad I did, because we had a lot of fun!

Former member Craig paid us a visit tonight. He came to help us begin writing a mission statement.  Craig explained the importance of having a mission statement and got us started on one. We worked on a mnemonic filled with characteristics of D-I-F-F-E-R-E-N-C-E Makers. Stay tuned for more on that.

I had suggested that we just "chill," order pizza, and watch a movie or something, but I should have known that Difference Makers wouldn't be interested in being lazy. Instead, they suggested we play some board games (Not being fools, they did accept the pizza offer.).  For the next hour and a half, if you walked past my room, you probably asked yourself, "What's going on in there?! Whatever they're doing, it must be fun, because I've never heard people laughing so loudly or so often!"

Here are some photo highlights of our fun with Spot It, Trigger, and Apples to Apples.

Run Against Cancer

We raised $106 for our Relay for Life team at our first-ever Run Against Cancer. We didn't have a huge turnout, but we did have fun :)

Bucket full of busy!!!

Tonight we worked and discussed and worked and discussed and worked some more!  We finished posters, are making thank-yous, and planned a route in case it's raining.  Our bracelets are working good and we are emailing more teachers to see if they want to come.  Our announcements are ready for tomorrow and boy, do we have a great poem!!!  Tuesday will be a very busy day and we MUST REMEMBER TO WEAR OUR TEE-SHIRTS!!!!!  Hopefully the RAC will have an AWESOME turn out!!!  We could have more money raised than last year!  Wish us good luck!!!

RAC

Well, we skipped one meeting (because of parent-teacher conferences), but we sure made up for lost time--We are planning a 5K walk/run to raise money for our Relay for Life team. We're calling it the Run Against Cancer, so that's where "RAC" comes from. It's going to take place on Tuesday, November 15th. We have a LOT to do  before then--It's exciting, but also a little stressful. It's a good thing everyone has so much enthusiasm.

Rainy Thursday

Today we helped Mr. Landers pick vegetables out of the school garden. It was raining, so we didn't get to go raking like we planned. Instead, we took pictures with our new camera and also shredded papers for the main office. Another big thing we did was brainstorm ideas for this year, including a possible 5k walk/run to raise money for our Relay for Life team.

Back to School!

Welcome to a new school year! Difference Makers students are excited about making a difference in our school, our community, and the world! Please let us know if you have suggestions for us!

Our first meeting will take place the first Thursday in October, October 6th.

Farewell, Craig!

One of our favorite Difference Makers, a founding member and 8th grader who will be moving on to the high school next year, is Craig. The Difference Makers wanted to do something special for Craig, so here is the result:

Winding Down

Since we started meeting last September, we have dedicated only one night to just having fun for us. Tonight, we celebrated the end of a very successful year by having a cookout at Jake's house. We had a great time eating, eating, eating, playing kickball, eating, and enjoying the company of Jake's animals.

Here's to a successful first year of Difference Makers!

Relay Success!

Our hard work paid off! Today was the Relay for Life, and we made a BIG difference! More on that later, but here's our journey...

First, on Friday, we finished pulling our Relay raffle offering.  Allison made the centerpiece of our gift; the awesome Diaper Cake!

We also finished up our penny war and counted a lot of the money by hand....

Our team effort really paid off--The penny war raised just over $400! That wasn't all, though; all in all, we raised a WHOPPING $2225.00!!!!

Not everyone was able to make it to the Relay itself (musical rehearsal was also taking place across the street), but we had an excellent showing and a really great day. Stay tuned for more about our Relay for Life experiences.

Relay Raffle

Well, we're not quite up to $3000, but we have raised a lot of money so far--$445!  That doesn't include the penny drive money from next week at the middle school, and some more money that teachers donated for the "casual dress" privilege.  We are also having a 50/50 raffle at the community band concert tonight!  Also tonight, a special donor who paid for our relay registration came to talk to us about why she feels so strongly about supporting her community and the fight against cancer.  She complimented us on the difference we are making, and that felt great.

update: Here's a photo from the raffle tonight at the concert:    

What a great feeling! We raised $76 in the raffle, and the winner gave most of her winnings back to us!  Right now, our total amount raised so far is $552!!!

Penny Drive!

Next week, we're kicking off a penny drive to benefit Relay for Life! We are already 10% of the way to our goal to raise $3000 to help fight cancer.

To donate on our relay page, click here.

Relay Fun!

For the past two weeks, we've been very busy getting ready for Relay for Life.  So far, we've raised $175 in donations, as well as $100 in our recent "Hat Day." Tonight, we put a lot of effort into planning our penny war for next week. We got the containers ready, made signs, and recorded some awesome video announcements.  We plan to offer a "Cookie Buffet" to the homeroom that raises the most money and the homeroom that collects the most pennies.  That means we'll be baking a LOT of cookies at one of our upcoming meetings. (Don't worry--We'll be sure to sample them before giving them away.)  Another cool thing is that every person who donates a dollar to the penny drive will get a raffle ticket. We'll be drawing six (2 per grade) "Choose Your Lunch Color" passes for the winners of the drawings.  We're having a lot of fun and are really excited about hopefully reaching our goal of raising $3000 for Relay for Life.

Woodhaven

We visited Woodhaven again tonight and basically just hung out with the residents. They really loved that Craig brought a bag full of piano music, and he played for a while. We've decided to do some Readers Theater stuff for the residents the next time we visit. We've already got some great scripts and started practicing.

To All Teachers, We Salute You!

Tonight we worked on our a project to recognize the impact of special teachers on all of us.  We invited everyone to fill out hearts with a teachers name on them and what they did to make a difference in their lives.  The banner is slowly but surely filling up!