'Serving others is a new, exciting way of life'

Since Walnut Elementary’s K-Kids Club was formed about a year ago, it has made a difference through service projects and fundraisers in Pickaway County. The club’s mission is to inspire students to serve others.

“The purpose of starting this club was to provide opportunities for young students to discover their desire to serve,” said Daniel Mabe, a special education teacher and Kiwanis Kids advisor at Walnut Elementary School. “When I interviewed for an administrative job in June last year, I was asked the question, ‘What does it mean to be a public servant?’ and that question stuck with me. I wanted to start a club where students discover their heart to serve, and decide that serving others is a new, exciting way of life.”

After the club baked goods and sold them during parent-teacher conference night in February, the club presented a $302.95 donation to the Pickaway County Community Action Agency (PICCA) in March.

“We’ve also done little projects between the months like assisting our night custodians with cleaning tasks and making biodegradable bird feeders for migrating birds this spring season,” Mabe said.

Mabe explained that every month, students vote on service projects that they come up with. One of the projects voted on in January was fundraising money for a local organization. The club looked into multiple organizations specifically in our community like the Ashville Food Pantry and Floyd E. Younkin Branch Library, but ended up choosing PICCA because they have a satellite location in Ashville called the Ashville Neighborhood Center.

This center provides education (Head Start), utility assistance, and tax services to low-income children and their families and is funded federally.

However, it is not adequately funded so the club wanted to make an educational impact on the lives of those who deserve a quality education before transferring into school-age (kindergarten), Mabe said.

“Many students do not know these services exist so I made a little presentation to explain the benefits of these crucial services to the public and the impact they make for impoverished families,” he said. “It was a fun little project because students made flyers to put around the school hallways, made signs for their tables outlining what they were fundraising money for, and even advertised it on social media so parents could bring money the night of conferences.”

Students helped with custodial tasks and making homemade bird feeders with toilet paper rolls, bird feed, honey, and twine in February.

Presently, the spring bird migration has started, and many birds from the south are making their flight to Ohio and other northern states, so the club made bird feeders.

“I made a presentation about bird migration occurring between mid-February to mid-June and explained that Ohio has become a place that is quickly gaining recognition as one of North America’s best places for birds during spring migration,” Mabe said. “After that, they were given materials and made bird feeders. They were hung in the trees around the school. I saw cardinals and robins taking seeds from the birdfeeders!”

The club’s next major project is building a community garden bed at the school in April.

“Our next service project is building a community garden bed,” Mabe said. “I have old non-pressurized wood shelves in my garage that I no longer need so we’re repurposing them to make a raised garden bed. It will be a great way for students to switch from a traditional classroom setting where they are often engaged in passive learning to hands-on learning in an outdoor garden space.”

Mabe continued, “They will learn the importance of planning, planting, caring and harvesting. Hopefully I will get some 5th grade volunteers to assist me in the summer months to weed out any invasive plants. All food will either be provided to the public, lunchroom, or used for studying in the classroom. We won’t start this project until April 11.”

Being that it’s the club’s first year of service, it’s been a huge success. Mabe recalled how the club helped the school’s custodians.

“This is our first year having a service club and we’ve had excellent attendance and projects so far. Club members come up to me all the time in the hallway asking, ‘When’s our next meeting Mr. Mabe? I can’t wait!’ and ‘Mr. Mabe, it was a lot of fun helping Mr. Fuller clean the school. I had no idea they had to work so hard while we’re out of school! I hope we can help them again soon!’”

Mabe continued, “I know many service clubs in our area are aging so I am trying to engage our youth to get involved with the community and help those in need. Overall, the reception of K-Kids has been phenomenal from the community.”