The 2025 regional affiliate champion junior division community projects from around the world submitted these summaries and promotional videos to showcase their service learning impact. Each individual and student team applied our problem-solving process in their communities to create lasting change.
ASRO (Academic Stress Reduction Odyssey)
The Academic Stress Reduction Odyssey (A.S.R.O) is an academic stress focused group that aims to reduce stress among students in our school. We noticed that since our school has higher academic standards, students feel pressure for their academic performance. We find that engaging students in fun activities about this topic can have a sustainable impact on them.
BEAP – Bee Education and Protection
Team BEAP have found concerning information about bees, indicating bees are endangered. Team BEAP have found that if they don’t act, research evidence indicates bees will be extinct as soon as 2050, creating a massive impact on global ecology, human food production, the economy and human society. Team BEAP want to educate their school community on the importance of our native bees to help protect them and our future. Join team BEAP and ‘Bee the change you want to see’.
Bridge the Gap – Helping EAL/D Students to Adapt
Our project aims to help students for whom English is another Language or Dialect (EAL/D) who come to our school in Kindergarten with very little English to increase their English language skills and feel connected with the community. This will help both their education and sense of inclusion within community.
F.R.E.S.H. (Food Resources for Eating Smart and Healthy)
In our world today, there is a growing problem, unhealthy eating. Our team, the Healthy Helpers, created Project F.R.E.S.H. (Food Resources for Eating Smart and Healthy) to help combat this growing issue. Our goal this year has been to educate our community about the importance of healthy eating and to help provide healthy eating resources to our community. By teaching others about how to improve their healthy eating practices, we have seen a positive impact on our community! We believe Project F.R.E.S.H.’s actions will continue to make an impact for years to come!
From Darkness to Light
This project aims to develop applications that help visually impaired parents navigate the school independently, enhancing their participation in events and communication with teachers. By promoting accessibility and awareness, the project fosters a more inclusive and confident school environment for everyone.
Healthy Helpers
The Healthy Helpers, a team of five students at Indian Trails Middle School, aims to combat physical health issues like obesity and poor eating habits among peers. They launched “Fitness Friday,” a weekly competition encouraging exercise and promoting healthy eating. Through surveys and flyers, they raise awareness about nutritious foods and provide alternative options. Despite challenges in communication and implementation, the project has successfully engaged students, fostering healthier habits. The team plans to sustain their efforts into the next school year, emphasizing the importance of physical well-being within their community.
Occupation Exploration
Team Occupation Exploration’s goal is to expose students to a variety of careers in our area and give students knowledge about careers to help them make decisions about their futures. We had a career fair that had a huge positive impact on the Rymfire students and the Palm Coast community.
Plastic Pollution Blockers
We’re Plastic Pollution Blockers from the Washington State. We want to block the plastics from going into the landfill because the King County’s major landfill site, Cedar Hill Landfill Site, is filling up. We repurpose the plastic waste and re-create them into vases and lamps.
Purely Plastics
Purely Plastics is a Community Projects team at Thomas Grover Middle School focused on educating their community about the harmful effects of plastics so that people can take action and be part of the solution.
Regulators
The Flat Gap Regulators set out on a mission to help others control their emotion and strengthen their self-regulation. We realized that ‘No Kid Wants to be the Bad kid” and that helping our Flat Gap school community would influence our community as a whole.
Roots & Rescue
After Hurricane Helene, and seeing the devastation and fallen trees in Western North Carolina (WNC), and in our hometown of Charlotte, we knew we had to do something. Trees are majestic, but can be destructive when they fall. We wondered, “How could we keep trees and people safe?” Based on advice from an arborist, we decided to write a children’s book. We visited Valle Crucis and Blowing Rock Schools in WNC and interviewed kids about their experiences with trees during Helene. We wrote our book using their stories and ideas on how people can care for their trees so they are less likely to fall in natural disasters.
Ruffin’ For The Dog Park
This year’s Community Problem Solvers worked on updating Baldwin Park’s dog park by bringing more resources in for dogs and their owners. The team worked closely with councilwoman Laura Ryder from the town of Hempstead to help install new agility equipment, plant a tree and create kid friendly signs. The team also worked with the Baldwins Lions club to get flower donations to plant to help beautify the park. The team plans on conducting another survey to see the impact the new dog park has on the community.
The smART Squad
We are the smART Squad. We aim to put the “art” in smart. Because only 13.1% of students in our school get to do art at school daily, how might we, The smART Squad, increase the opportunity for the students at our school to do art in the regular curriculum, so that they will be motivated to learn in 2024-2025 and beyond? In order to reach this goal, we have created a website with hands-on art activities, hosted monthly art contests based on what students are learning and provided art supplies for every classroom.
