YHS students experience service learning

Students in Deborah Brown’s sixth-period government class this year got a first-hand experience with service.

The class raised more than $500 in the three weeks before winter break to buy gifts for the battered and abused children at the Craycroft Youth Center in Fresno, a branch of the Fresno Rescue Mission.

Each student signed up to bring 38 of one kind of gift. Before they made the trip to Fresno on December 13, they filled huge, red stockings with the gifts such as gum, candy, coloring books, Play-Doh, pencils and soap. With the money they raised, the students bought a Foosball table, a doll house and a paint wagon for the kids to play with at the center. One mother of the Yosemite students handmade 38 tooth-fairy pillows.

At the center the students paired up, one-on-one, with a child at the center. They also headed up craft stations and threw a pizza lunch and donated what was left of the $500 to the center. They sang Christmas carols and made up Christmas carol books for the kids so they could sing along. Three of the students played guitars and one played the piano for accompaniment.

The project is part of the service-learning requirement for passing government class. The students have to donate 20 hours to service during the semester. The event was planned in conjunction with Coarsegold Elementary School District’s Community Day School, run by Paula McCabe.