A volunteer- noun- meaning :

a person who voluntarily offers himself or herself for a service or undertaking

a person who performs a service willingly and without pay.

Blaine High School recognized student volunteers who do awesome service, in our first ever Youth Service Banquet! You have heard of all kinds of sport banquets, but on Thursday, May 14th, we invited any students who were involved in any sort of volunteerism to the cafeteria to celebrate. Some of whom lettered in People With a Purpose (PWAP) or the We Act Club. Those who were not in either clubs were still recognized if they were eligible for the presidential award.

I asked with Amera Hassan (10) in Student in Action, a core planning group for youth service projects, how she thought the banquet would go. She said, “I obviously want this to be a success and I think it will be because we are an awesome group of people and we’re going to rock this!”

With the first ever Youth Service Banquet, advisor Julie Phillips didn’t know exactly what she was expecting, but she was excited nonetheless.

When people first walked in there was a check in table with free goody bags with cute treats and prizes. A t-shirt if you didn’t own one, and a chance to enter in a raffle for more awesome gifts. As people got seated, a slideshow was playing of hundreds of pictures throughout the school year of all the wonderful things our school did in terms of volunteerism.

Following one of the best parts of the night with eating, Mrs. Kell (Advisor for PWAP)  and Mrs. Phillips (Youth Service Coordinator) went to the front stage and presented a powerpoint summarizing the projects that we have accomplished as a school as well as some of the requirements of lettering.

After the lettering ceremony, the Students in Action group gave their presentation on all of the things our school has done, and the impact it made. Tom Basquill from the Jefferson Awards program Student in Action itself, came to congratulate the Blaine SIA team again. Our Student in Action group won 2nd place in the Jefferson Awards by .1 points with the written and oral report!

And then, the last thing on the schedule was to recognize the students who went out and donated their time to volunteering. They were given the Presidential Award with the 3 levels, bronze, silver and gold.

All in all, it was a rewarding night to just give shout outs to all the amazing students involved in youth service. Congratulations to everybody  who just went above and beyond this school year. Mrs. Phillips said, “..it was a learning experience but a very good first annual youth service banquet!”

LETTERING AND AWARD REQUIREMENTS