| The Notre Dame High School PAWS social justice group is their 12th month of ministry work. What started in the 2015-2016 school year as a student lead groups of 8 students facilitated by a certified staff member, has expanded to a group of 40 students, still lead by the same staff member.
A driving force behind PAWS is the idea of the importance of volunteerism in teenagers. According to ServiceLeader.org, volunteer service promotes healthy choices, teaches important life skills, improves the community, and encourages a lifelong service ethic. This idea aligns with the values of Catholic faith that permeates programming within Notre Dame High School. Moreover, the liaison teacher’s aims is for PAWS ministry be student lead, where the youth are not only involved in the solicitation and gathering of resources and funds, but also participate in the delivery of their collections. In their first year, PAWS did charitable acts and fundraising for: The Calgary Human Society, the Calgary Library Foundation and the Calgary Public Library (next door to the school). The club received a small grant in April 2016 with the money used for advertising supplies and transportation for volunteer work and delivery of donations. However as of January 2017 all the funds from this grant have been used. A mandate of the club is to provide educational awareness to the student and staff population. When possible, the group attempts to inform the school community about the needs they have selected to work towards, why those needs exist, and how they can work with the school community to address these needs. They provide opportunities for the school community to participate in charitable actions, as directed by their own peers. The purpose of this evaluation is to find out if the program is promoting healthy choices, teaching important life skills, impacting the school community/community and encouraging a life long service ethic (will the grade 12 students continue their work after graduation in the spring?). Now in its twelfth month, with a group that has quickly quintupled, PAWS needs to revisit its mandates to ensure that it is benefiting its members and target audiences in its intended way and what might need to be altered as a result of the evaluation. |
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