Students from the Glen Crest Middle School Builders Club recently spent Saturday morning, January 25, volunteering at the environmental organization SCARCE, located in Glen Ellyn. The Builders Club is a service club sponsored by Kiwanis, and is essentially a middle-school version of Kiwanis's Key Clubs. This organization has helped out at SCARCE in the past with a number of different environmental projects. This time they were taking discarded crayons, removing the paper from them, sorting them by color, and then melting them down and molding them into a variety of larger shapes so that they can be used by children with special needs. “The Builders Club members get a lot of joy from helping others in a variety of ways, and this project was no exception,” explained Craig Hofmann, Glen Crest sixth grade social studies teacher and Builders club sponsor. Seventh grader, Stephanie Price commented,: "Even though my fingernails hurt a little from peeling the wrappers off the crayons, I kept peeling because I knew that the kids would be so happy to get these Super Crayons."
In December they helped out at the holiday events at all four District 89 elementary schools, had a holiday event with the seniors at the Meadows (decorated their walkers, played a game, reminisced), and helped the residents at the DuPage Convalescent Center play Bingo. The club usually has two or three outside service events each month. Coming up in February they will be visiting with senior residents of the Meadows for a Valentines Day event, packing meals with Feed My Starving Children, and playing games with the residents of Marklund Childrens Home.
Hofmann, who is also one of the basketball coaches, traveled with the girls and boys basketball teams to volunteer at Feed My Starving Children in January. For information about the Glen Crest Builders Club call the middle school office at 630-469-5220.
