The H.W. Smith Elementary RotaKid Club began in October of 2004 at a school wide assembly. There are 750 RotaKids in that school with six Board members and approximately 20 Class Representatives who meet weekly to discuss ways to improve their school, community and world.
They began by collecting bottles and cans to help their 6th grade go on a class trip. Then the tsunami struck. The students decided that they did not need a trip, but instead wanted to donate the $1600 they had raised to the tsunami victims. In 2005 the Board of Directors of the RotaKid Club called an emergency meeting 1 week prior to school starting to discuss what they could do to help the Hurricane victims in the Gulf. They have taken on the responsibility of helping those in need. They gave up the last days of summer vacation to work on ways to assist those that had lost so much – Service Above Self.
Every morning after the Pledge of Allegiance the whole school (students, teachers, staff and volunteers) recites the RotaKid Pledge:
As a Rotakid, I promise
to be fair to all, to serve
my community, and to
show respect to others.
In the upcoming months the HW Smith RotaKids will be involved in monitoring local streams for water quality; will purchase a family water filter; will hold fundraisers; will collect books for the hurricane shelters; will work on an alternative energy project with NYSERDA and the Syracuse University Engineering Department; will have their own column in the Syracuse Newspaper; and will continue working to keep their own school clean.
The RotaKids have a meeting each friday morning and are going to work on a special water project but on this friday morning part of the job was in their own school.
The Syracuse water supply was contaminated and the water undrinkable. The RotaKids figured out where the bottled water was needed and took care of the delivery.
GREAT KIDS---GREAT JOB
