Weekly Update
The school year is in full swing, and it sounds like things are going great in the Durant Public Schools. Southeastern classes start this week, and we welcome everyone back to Durant. We are so fortunate to have such a fine educational system in our county.
On Monday and Tuesday, I will visit with students at the Durant High School. We have had several students already doing service learning hours for Durant Main Street. The attitude of these young people is outstanding. It is a pleasure working with them.
The concept of service learning is to teach students the value of contributing to their community. I regularly tell people that there would be no sports complex if a group of people had not gotten involved. There would also be no skate park if a young man wouldn’t have voiced his interest.
We can make a better place if we work to make a difference instead of sitting back waiting for someone else to do it. We have hundreds of volunteers working to make Durant Main Street and our community the best it can be, and I think you can see the impact.
Becoming involved really gives a person a good feeling. I have heard many people say they drive by a place and feel good about having painted a building or cleaning up a place. If you will remember, the Durant Main Street office was quite a project to get it transformed into a functioning office. This took many hours of work, and the names are one the wall showing people that made it happen.
Really, the premise of giving back to the community is an underlying factor in the service learning project for Mrs. Latona’s classes at Durant High School. Yes, the students are making a difference, but they are learning first of all.
The students are required to write a summary of their experience. They must tell how they could improve the process. This requires thinking and utilization of skills taught in various classes as we do so many different things. They sometimes come up with very good ideas. They also learn that implementation of these ideas is not always possible due to funding and other resources.
Another thing that becomes apparent to the young people is the work that goes into a project or event. For instance, the shopping spree is dependent upon tickets to distribute to the businesses to hand out to customers for their chance to win. We begin with the Street Carnival to raise money to give away. This event relies on students operating games. However, setup and cleanup also occurs.
Then tickets must be stamped, recorded, distributed, picked up, etc. The easy way would be to have nice tickets printed and bundled, but this is not affordable. With the volunteer labor, we are able to use a more labor intensive process and accomplish the same goals.
Students learn, but they also have fun. Almost all the written summaries include a statement about fun. They are making a valuable contribution, and hopefully, they understand how much their efforts are appreciated.
For more information about how you can become involved, call 580-924-1550 or stop by 110 N. Second. Visit us online at Twitter, Facebook, or www.durantmainstreet.org.