Service Learning in the Bronx:
Student Honors MLK Day with Poem

Rahni Davis is a student at Banana Kelly in the Bronx, where buildOn is transforming classrooms with service learning programs. Davis tutors elementary-aged children with buildOn at The Point, and is very excited to be traveling this spring to help us construct a school in Malawi! Below, she performs a poem written on Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday to preserve Dr. King’s memory and remind us of the work that still needs to be done.

Continue reading…

Service Learning in the Bronx:
10th Grade Science Classes Empowered by
Teen Health Speaker

10th Graders at Banana Kelly Learn How to Ask the Right Questions

By Stephanie Gilman, Program Manager

Earlier this year the Youth Engagement Zone at Banana Kelly had the great pleasure of bringing Estelle Raboni, Program Manager of Changing the Odds, and community health expert, to the 10th grade classes to speak and answer questions. As discussed previously in regards to our 10th grade health survey of the Bronx, this semester has been all about training the class to become independent learners and health advocates at Banana Kelly High, and with this speaker we hoped to personalize the findings made in the community health survey for our students. Asking questions, after all, is a necessary part of community and social growth, and we hoped to empower students to ask whatever questions they might have.

To prepare the students for Estelle’s visit we had them do a question formulation technique exercise which involved brainstorming as many questions as possible about the various health issues they are researching. They were then asked to choose the questions most appropriate to ask an expert. In addition, we went over the results of the surveys they administered in October. We wanted the students to dig deep within themselves and pull out genuine, thoughtful questions in response to their own environment and experience.

Continue reading…

The YEZ at Banana Kelly: Service as An Alternative to Suspension

By Stephanie Gilman, Program Manager

Welcome to the first Youth Engagement Zone blog post of the new year! We’re excited to be back at Banana Kelly High School in the Bronx for the spring semester, and I’d like to discuss in today’s entry some of the less traditional or obvious ways the YEZ model can allow us to have an impact on school culture and environment. Because we are in the school full time, and co-teaching service-learning classes, we are able to get to know students and connect with them on a variety of levels, including academic and more casual interactions.

Willis Cash with YEZ Coordinator Haddi Waggeh

I first met Willis Cash, a Banana Kelly student, on a service learning trip with the high school’s 9th grade class. After that, I began to recognize him around the school–hanging out with the YEZ at the student store on certain days, for example. I had a few casual conversations with him and made it clear that he was always free to interact with us in his free time. One day, I noticed that Willis was looking particularly upset, and I asked him what was wrong. He told me that he’d had an incident with another student and was going to be suspended as a result.

I knew that Cash (he sometimes goes by his last name) was a good kid and felt that suspension would do more harm that good, and would definitely not serve him. I talked to the school’s dean and devised a second option for Cash: He could be suspended, or do community service with us on Saturday. In other circumstances, this would be harder to advocate for, but since Willis had no prior incidents, the dean agreed.

“I took the community service,” Cash says now. “It turned about to be a great thing to do.”

Continue reading…

The YEZ at Banana Kelly: Student Store Update!

By Stephanie Gilman, Program Manager

Banana Kelly’s student store opened in March of 2011 as an attempt to give a small group of the school’s students practical work experience and responsibilities in which they could take pride. As we described right here on the blog, it’s a resource that they can manage themselves–for students, by students.

The store is now finishing its second semester of operation, and the response has been overwhelming. YEZ Program Coordinator Joahan Suarez has been managing this effort, and here’s his report on the last 4 months of the store’s life.

———

All Employees at the Store Have the Responsibility of Handling Profits

On Tuesday’s, Wednesday’s and Thursday’s during the hours of 11:55am – 12:35pm, Banana Kelly’s room 313 is one of the coolest spots in school. As soon as students go on lunch break, they visit the YEZ store to buy under-200 calorie bags of chips, string cheese, fruit snacks, water, and 100% fruit juice, and the newly-added honey bun. While they eat these items, they make new friends, catch up with old ones, and sign up for community service projects.

Continue reading…

The YEZ at Banana Kelly:
Students Learn About Communities & Themselves in Internships

By Stephanie Gilman, Program Manager

The Youth Engagement Zone at Banana Kelly has engaged a small part of its senior class this year in local internships that provide service-oriented job experience. This year we have 5 interns: Keylen Barahona and Anthony Rosario, who work with children at La Peninsula Head Start; Yanique McKenzie, who works at Assembly Member Marcos Crespo’s office; and Jessica Garcia and Lianabel Frias, who also work with children at the Bronx Charter School for the Arts.

On November 8, the interns participated in a reflection and lunch. Here’s what four of them had to say in response to questions!

The YEZ's interns discuss challenges and triumphs

What are three things you have learned at your internship?

Anthony: Kids aren’t as bad as you think. They don’t judge and if you’re actually there to help people will be happy to see you.
Yanique: I’ve learned that is it important to help our community members. I’ve also learned that Marcos Crespo is contributing to the community in many different ways. And I’ve learned to act professionally.
Keylen: Three things I have learned at my internship are that teachers have a lot of work when teaching the kids, they need a lot of patience, and they have to get accustomed to the personality of
each child.
Lianabel: The three things I’ve learned at my internship are that teachers have a lot of work besides teaching in class. Kindergarteners cry a lot. Hard work pays off.

Continue reading…

The YEZ at Banana Kelly: Surveying the Health of the Bronx

By Stephanie Gilman, Program Manager

A Banana Kelly science student talks to a Bronx resident

This year, Banana Kelly’s Youth Engagement Zone is transforming science classes with service learning. During my last update, I talked about how our work with 10th grade students would be scaffolding upon 9th grade activities from last year. Our goal, once again, is to provide the teens with an opportunity to complete their own neighborhood investigation, data gathering, and research. During the first session, we discussed the differences between healthy neighborhoods and unhealthy ones, and then we developed a survey we could take to the streets. We wanted to discover what Bronx residents think of their community in terms of health.

Continue reading…

The YEZ at Banana Kelly:
10th Grade Service Learning Addresses
Community Health Issues

By Stephanie Gilman, Program Manager

Students respond to a prompt about what makes a healthy community

buildOn’s Youth Engagement Zone is back in session for the new academic year! We’re very excited to continue integrating service learning into Banana Kelly’s classrooms, and upcoming projects will build upon the experiences students had in the winter and spring. Last year’s 9th grade science classes took field trips to Kensico Dam and the Bronx River to study the locations and, eventually, in the case of the latter, go canoeing!

This fall, we’re scaffolding upon those efforts with the same group of youth, who are now 10th graders; science classes will focus on health issues affecting Bronx neighborhoods, and what can be done about them. To achieve this, I’ll be teaching service learning lab classes once a month along with science teacher Emily Chakwin, who’s also been on a school building trip with buildOn and serves as one of our YEZ advisers.

Our goal is to provide the students with an opportunity to complete their own neighborhood investigation, data gathering, and research. In our first session, we had the classes brainstorm the difference between healthy communities and unhealthy ones–among the problems identified were dietary issues, asthma, and drug addiction. We furthermore expanded the definition of “healthy community” to denote an environment that is free from violence. By treating health as a holistic concept and ensuring that the students have ownership over their own outreach projects, we hope that these science classes will produce a group of peer educators and community activists that can inform and assist those around them.
Continue reading…

The Youth Engagement Zone at Banana Kelly:
Serving Homeless People in Philadelphia

By Stephanie Gilman, Program Manager

The YEZ Gang Heads to Philadelphia to Feed Homeless People

buildOn’s Youth Engagement Zone just finished its 4-week summer program, a series of service projects that got students out of their homes and interacting with the Bronx neighborhood through the month of July. Previously on the blog, we discussed the YEZ’s trip to the James Monroe Housing Development with local Assembly Member Marcos Crespo and their efforts to spread awareness of urban violence prevention methods. On August 4th, students ventured even further out of the bubble of summer leisure and met at Times Square at 7am to ride a Greyhound Bus into Philadelphia to volunteer at a homeless shelter.

We wanted to show the students the similarities between inner-city environments in different locations; to illustrate how the problem of homelessness extends beyond the Bronx. We set up a service project with the Sunday Breakfast Rescue Mission, an organization that runs a temporary shelter and transitional housing for homeless men, as well as a soup kitchen for all that serves three meals a day. After we arrived on the bus, the students were given a tour of the facilities by the community outreach director, who provided a brief history of the organization and an explanation of why their approach helps homeless people.

Continue reading…

The Youth Engagement Zone at Banana Kelly:
Going Door to Door to Curb Urban Violence

By Stephanie Gilman, Program Manager

The YEZ's Students At James Monroe Housing Development

School may not be in session, but the Youth Engagement Zone, buildOn’s service learning program at Banana Kelly High, is still going strong with a number of community outreach activities. On Friday, July 8th, students ventured to the James Monroe Housing Development in the Soundview area of the Bronx to spread the word door-to-door about what residents can do to help prevent violence. The students were accompanied not only by community volunteers but by local assembly member Marcos Crespo.

“There’s been a number of high profile crimes in Soundview recently,” Crepso commented. “Everything from a young student who was shot while coming out of a high school to a gentleman who was picked at random and also shot. There’s a lot of gang activity going on and drug sales and it’s leading to a lot of these shootings. In response to that we’ve done some peace rallies with both students and seniors. And for this project we wanted to get buildOn’s students to go door to door spreading the word about how to report illegal guns and crimes through an anonymous hotline. If a tip leads to an arrest the caller could be rewarded up to $1000.”

Continue reading…

The Youth Engagement Zone at Banana Kelly:
Year End Celebration!

By Stephanie Gilman, Program Manager

With the school year winding down, we’re taking the opportunity to recognize the hard work our students and staff have put into making the Youth Engagement Zone at Banana Kelly such a success. No one was quite sure what to expect–integrating service learning with urban high school curriculum presents challenges for which there are no ready-made solution. But as stories right here on the blog have shown, the last semester in particular has been a rewarding one. We’ve seen students reaching out to their communities, to each other, and to themselves–to the selves they might not have realized they had within them.

Continue reading…