Mendocino K-8 7th and 8th graders do community service every Wednesday for one hour and twenty two minutes. There are a total of six community service groups. The teachers of these groups are; Mark, Sage, Ryan, Meuschke, Frederick, and Laura. Each group has different projects and activities that they do to serve the community. On the first Wednesday of every month all of the community service classes go on a community service field trip to the beach to pull invasive beach grass.

In Sage’s community service class they are working with the food bank in Fort Bragg. Earlier in the year they did a canned food drive and donated food to the food bank.The class collected around 400 pounds of canned food in total. Sage’s community service class also goes on field trips to the food bank. They have gone a total of 4 times and plan on going 3 more times this year. When the class goes to the food bank they help hand out food and stock shelves. 

Mark’s community service class has a couple of things that they do. The first is pulling the invasive plant, scotch broom, from school property and in the areas around the school. Mark’s community service class also is planning on working at theVictory Gardens for peace at the Stanford Inn at the base of Comptche Ukiah Road. Additionally, Mark’s class works with the kindergarten class at the K-8. They read with them and teach them how to mix colors .

In Mr. Meuschke’s community service class, they plan on repainting the map on the black top because it has faded over the years. In the beginning of the year his class made and decorated cards that were distributed to businesses around Mendocino that encouraged people to register to vote. Around the holidays, they made holiday cards that were put in food baskets that were given to people in need of food assistance. His class also looked over the dress code, and highlighted things that they thought didn’t make sense or needed to be changed or worded differently. 

Ryan’s community service class works with the family resource center. The Family Resource center  is a program that tries to help families and provide resources for them including parenting classes and holiday clothing swaps.  The class goes to Harvest Market where they ask for food and money for the center. Rians community service  also has come up with topics of letters to send to our state senator, Mike Micguire.The letters are planning on covering issues in the world that they believe we need to address.

Mrs Frederick’s community service class  has worked on planning events for the school. Her class has planned quite a few fun activities that the school has done including Anything But a Backpack and Pajama Day. Her class has also thought about planning a dance. At the beginning of the year her class worked on composting as well.

At the beginning of the year,  Laura’s community service class was working on baking dog treats for the Humane Society. Currently, they teach games to the younger grades during their recess which is at the same time as our community service classes. Her class also works on clearing the school campus of litter by picking up trash regularly.

As you can see the 7th and 8th grade classes are working very hard to improve their community and help people out. All the students and their different classes are addressing different issues. It is very important and amazing that the youth are working so hard to improve the quality of life for others.