The senior AVID classes had to do a community-based project. This project was assigned to each and every senior who takes AVID as a class. The project was designed to teach the seniors how to get more involved, as well as helping the community in doing so. All students had to report to an AVID teacher, Ms. Hamblin, for her approval on the project that the student was going to do. Each project had to be original and completely unfunded by the school, by parents, by any source that was not a donation, or by any source that was not a sponsor. This meant that the student had to connect with local business owners, as well as other local sources, in order to receive the funds that the student needed for the project. Also, students were not allowed to do a project that was not particularly helpful to the community. For example, a group of students wanted to write thank you notes to the local firemen who serve us. Although this is a sweet and kind idea, the notes would not actually be helping the community. Therefore, the students were denied this project, and had to choose another project to do. The students all had to make a presentation based off the successes and failures of their project.

These presentations were to include why they did that project, how it helped the community, what exactly the students had troubles with, what the students thought were easy, and much more. In the past, the presentations were not open to the whole school. Contrary to this, the presentations this year had been open to the public, as well as the whole school.

One of the projects was the “ARC Project”. This project was done by Rosa Silva, Vania Romo, and Elizabet Santillan. These three young women, had chosen to help the “Alpha House” as their project. They wanted to do this by teaching art classes to the people at the Alpha House. When asked by Hamblin why they choose to do this, they responded with, “Not very many people try to help the Alpha House, so we thought it would be a good idea to try and help them.” The students then went on to discuss how it was very easy to get along with the individuals from the Alpha House. The end result of this project was very spectacular. The three young women explained how by teaching these art classes to them, it made the people there happy. It also inspired some of them to try doing art on their own.

The “R-word Pledge” is a project that was completed by Elijah Cortez, and Emily Dunham. The “R-word Pledge”, had aimed to stop the use of the word “retard” on and off campus. Emily and Elijah choose this project because they had heard the use of this word on campus many many times. They also felt that this word was a lack of respect to other pupils when said. Also, they believed that stopping the use of this one word would snowball into a movement that stopped all types of bad “slang” used by students. The two ambitious students started by printing brochures that presented a mini contract inside. The mini contract stated that whoever signed their name, would stop using the “R” word, and stop being disrespectful towards fellow students, as well as staff and teachers. By the end of the project, Dunham and Cortez had successfully received more than 300 signatures.

Another project was the “One Day I Will” project. This project was completed by Sarah Lopez and Cora Wood. The project was designed so that students from different schools, could write, “One day I Will…”, then finish the sentence with whatever they wished to be in the future. The project had received a lot of positive feedback from students, as the whole entire board was covered in quotes. When asked by Hamblin what was easy and hard about the project, the students responded with great enthusiasm. “It was hard trying to find the time for the project between sports, and other school-related events, but we eventually found the time. It was easy to put the board up in these different schools for students.” Lopez and Wood then went on to explain how they loved the fact that the project had received so much positive input from students. “At first, we thought nobody would write things, or that the things that they would write would be mean. But it turned out, that everyone loved it and wrote positive things.”

There were many other projects that students completed and they did a wonderful job at accomplishing their goals. The AVID seniors who participated in the projects helped the community in various and positive ways.