Post Tagged with: "Servant’s Heart Club"

New Middle School Servant’s Heart Club Makes Sandwiches, Brownies to Bless Homeless Adults, Teens in Atlantic City

Serving others and showing the love of Jesus through acts of kindness is the motto of a new Middle School Servant’s Heart Club that this month has made some 50 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the Atlantic City Rescue Mission, baked brownies for teens at the Covenant House in Atlantic City, and created hand-made cards for gift bags for Angels in Motion. The club is one of 12 middle school clubs that are now meeting weekly during 8th period, a new time slot created this year for middle school and high school clubs to meet.

Other middle school clubs include crafts, chess, STEM, Bible and basketball, and National Junior Honor Society. There are also some 12 high school clubs that meet on Thursdays, including Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Missions, Hispanic Heritage, Student Ambassadors, National Honor Society, and several Bible studies. All the clubs are led by ACS faculty and staff.

“We wanted to set aside time during the school day for our students to get involved in groups focused on ministry, leadership, and service by being part of one or more clubs,” said Upper School Principal Meg McHale. “We’re excited to see the impact that these clubs will be having within our school and in our community.”

Faculty member Linda Stiteler, who is the Middle School Servant’s Heart Club advisor, said she and the 12 students in her club have put together an ambitious list of service projects for this school year. Some of the upcoming projects include collecting scarves, gloves, and socks for the Atlantic City Rescue Mission, filling shoe boxes with children’s Christmas gifts for Samaritan’s Purse, and picking up trash at the Nature Reserve in Egg Harbor Township.

The members of the club are: Ashlee Alford, Annalena DiMaio, Natalia Flores, Mackenzie Flynn, Ava Lombardi, Ja’Niyah Martin, Josh Maxwell, Julia Morris, Nina Purdy, Chelsie Richards, Cyrus Seyf, and Haley Schnecker.

ACS Students Spreading Love to Seniors in Care Facilities for Valentine’s Day

ACS elementary students spent two weeks in February creating hand-made cards to bring some love and cheer to senior citizens in local nursing home and assisted living facilities on Valentine’s Day. Nearly 40 students who are part of the after-school Servant’s Heart Club made dozens of cards at their monthly meeting on February 1. Another some 90 students in kindergarten, first, and 3rd grade classes created colorful cards with encouraging messages as a special art project later in the month.

Mrs. Jennifer DiMaio, the Servant’s Heart Club advisor, said the Valentine’s Day cards created by the club members are being given to residents of the Somers Place Assisted Living Community in Egg Harbor Township.  ACS grandparent Suzanne Carney plans to deliver the cards created by the elementary classes to seniors living at Autumn Lake Healthcare in Ocean View, the Linwood Care Center, and the North Cape Center in North Cape May.

“These cards will bring smiles on the faces of the residents in these facilities and really make them feel special on Valentine’s Day,” Mrs. Carney said.

 

We Love Our Volunteers — Great Way to Get Involved in Our School

Volunteers are an important part of school life at ACS and we are blessed each year to see the servant hearts of our parents, guardians, grandparents, and friends in the community who are willing to give of their time and talents to make the school day experience at ACS the best it can be. As this school year gets underway, we are in need of volunteers to help in a variety of areas, which are described below. Please consider how you can be involved in the ACS Family by serving as a volunteer.

  • Lunchroom Volunteers — Volunteers are needed to serve lunch and help with light clean-up. Volunteers can choose to serve daily, once a week, or once a month. The serving time is from 10 am to 1 pm. We can accommodate anyone’s schedule. To sign up, please contact Services Coordinator Anne Block at ablock@acseht.org or call 609-653-1199, ext. 381.
  • Race for Education Volunteers — We need volunteers to help with the Race for Education on Race Day on Friday, October 29, from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. outdoors at the ACS track.  The volunteer duties include being a Race lap counter, serving at the water and popcorn stations, and being a Race photographer. To sign up, please contact Carole Karabashian, ACS Director of Development and Communication, at ckarabashian@acseht.org or call 609-653-1199, ext. 323.
  • Servant’s Heart Club — Volunteers are needed to assist with the after-school Servant’s Heart Club. The Club meets the first Friday of every month from October to May 3:15-4:00 p.m., with the first meeting on Friday, October 1. The club is for students in grades 2-5 and is focused on doing creative, hands-on service projects aimed at blessing people in our school and local community.  Past service activities that the club has conducted include: making snack bags and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the Atlantic City Rescue Mission, wrapping Christmas boxes for Operation Christmas Child, planting trees on the ACS campus and promoting recycling on Earth Day, and making salvation friendship bracelets to be gifted to children in Jamaica and the Dominican Republic. If you are interested in volunteering, please contact Club Advisor Mrs. Jennifer DiMaio at 609-432-2030.

Servant’s Heart Club Blesses Moms, School Staff with Appreciation Projects in May and June

ACS elementary students in the Servant’s Heart Club continued to find unique ways to serve and bless others for their final two projects in May and June — decorating flower pots and planting a flower in them as gifts for Mother’s Day and making ice cream sundaes to give to teachers and staff.

“It’s all about sharing God’s love by serving others,” said Club Advisor and ACS parent Jennifer DiMaio. “It’s important that we find ways to let the people God has put in our lives know that they are loved and appreciated.”  The 14 students from the 2nd to 5th grades who are members of the Club have been meeting after school on the first Tuesday of every month since October 2020 and each month’s project has had a different theme.

DiMaio said the students had fun at their May 4 meeting using colored markers to decorate their flower pots with artwork and special messages and were excited about giving them as gifts to their moms as well as to some of their teachers.  For their final club meeting on June 3, the students were treated to ice cream sundaes and then spent time making about 20 additional sundaes and delivering them to teachers and staff in their classrooms and offices, and to custodial staff in the hallways.

 

Students in Servant’s Heart Club Spread Love to Seniors for Valentine’s Day

Servant’s Heart Club members recently decorated and filled 80 Valentine’s Day gift bags for residents living in the Haven House, a senior assisted living facility in Cape May. The gift bag project was completed at their February 9 monthly meeting and the bags were delivered to Haven House on February 12, just in time for Valentine’s Day.

Club Advisor and ACS parent Mrs. Jennifer DiMaio said the bags were filled with candy, chocolate, mints, tissues, tea, hot chocolate, word find books, and cookies. The students also included a Valentine card with the John 3:16 verse.  During the meeting, Mrs. DiMaio and the club members also discussed assisted living facilities and prayed for the individuals receiving the bags.

“While working with intense eagerness and diligence, the students radiated absolute joy,” said Mrs. DiMaio. She also thanked 10th graders Allison Schlundt and Alli Lushina for helping the 2nd to 5th grade students in the club with the project.

Mrs. DiMaio said the club’s efforts were part of a larger project initiated and organized by ACS alumnus Ani Karabashian (’12) that blessed over 350 seniors on Valentine’s Day, including residents living at Victoria Towers in Cape May and seniors who are members of Beacon Evangelical Free Church in Galloway.

“At a time when so many people, and especially seniors, are feeling isolated and alone, we wanted to do something to let our seniors know that people are thinking of them and that they are loved,” Karabashian said.  According to Karabashian, the other volunteers who were part of the larger project and made Valentine’s cards for seniors were middle school and high school youth group and Sunday school children at Beacon Evangelical Free Church in Galloway and members of the South Jersey Young Adults group.

 

 

ACS Students Create Encouraging Christmas Messages for Navy Sailors on USS Theodore Roosevelt

U.S. Navy sailors serving on the USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier will be receiving greeting cards with encouraging messages and hand-made crafts for Christmas from ACS students who created the cards and crafts this month.

The project to send Christmas greetings to the sailors was initiated by ACS parent and Board of Directors’ member Kris Jacoby and her son, Joshua (JJ) Jacoby, an ACS senior. The Jacoby family has been long-time friends with the Spagnoli family in Galloway, and their son, Sam, is a Navy sailor stationed on the USS Theodore Roosevelt (pictured below).  Earlier this year, that carrier had an outbreak of COVID-19 onboard and the carrier’s 5,500 sailors had to be quarantined.

“These sailors have had a pretty rough year and we learned from Sam’s family that they are being deployed again and will be away from their families for Thanksgiving and Christmas,” said Mrs. Jacoby. “We felt that it would really bring a smile to the faces of these sailors if they received some Christmas cards and encouraging messages.”

Mrs. Jacoby said she was pleased that the ACS administration embraced the project, which got underway in early November. Students in the 6th to 12th grades were given the opportunity during their Bible classes to write personal messages in Christmas greeting cards for the soldiers.  Elementary students in the after-school Servant’s Heart Club during their November 3 meeting also got involved, painting crafts and decorating hand-written Christmas letters with Bible verses for the sailors.

In the end, the ACS students completed over 200 cards and letters for the sailors that they will receive next month. JJ Jacoby said some of the messages he and his fellow students wrote in the cards included — “Thank you for your service”; “Hope you have a merry Christmas”; and “We’re praying for you.”

“I think the sailors will really appreciate these cards,” JJ said. “They will be deploying very soon and will be on the carrier for six months straight, so getting a card for the holidays is really going to mean a lot to them. I’m just glad we had the opportunity to do something special for them.”

We Love Our Volunteers — Great Way to Be Involved in the ACS Family

Volunteers are an important part of school life at ACS and we are blessed each year to see the servant hearts of our parents, guardians, grandparents, and friends in the community who are willing to give of their time and talents to make the school day experience at ACS the best it can be. As this school year gets underway, we are in need of volunteers to help in a variety of areas, which are described below. Please consider how you can be involved in the ACS Family by serving as a volunteer.

  • Lunchroom Volunteers — Volunteers are needed to serve lunch and help with light clean-up. Volunteers can choose to serve daily, once a week, or once a month. The serving time is from 10 am to 1 pm. We can accommodate anyone’s schedule. To sign up, please contact Services Coordinator Anne Block at ablock@acseht.org or call 609-653-1199, ext. 381.
  • Race for Education Volunteers — We need volunteers to help with the Race for Education on Race Day on Friday, October 30, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. outdoors at the ACS track.  The volunteer duties include being a Race lap counter, serving at the water and popcorn stations, and being a Race photographer. To sign up, please contact Race Coordinator PJ Santos at psantos@acseht.org or call 609-653-1199, ext. 302.
  • Servant’s Heart Club — Volunteers are needed to assist with the after-school Servant’s Heart Club. The Club meets the first Tuesday of every month from 3:15-4:00 p.m. and the first meeting will be on Tuesday, October 6. The club is for students in grades 2-5 and is focused on doing creative, hands-on service projects aimed at blessing people in our school and local community.  Past service activities that the club has conducted include: making snack bags and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the Atlantic City Rescue Mission, wrapping Christmas boxes for Operation Christmas Child, planting trees on the ACS campus and promoting recycling on Earth Day, and making salvation friendship bracelets to be gifted to children in Jamaica and the Dominican Republic. If you are interested in volunteering, please contact Club Advisor Mrs. Jennifer DiMaio at 609-432-2030.

Servant’s Heart Club Makes Sandwiches for Atlantic City Rescue Mission

Elementary students in our Servant’s Heart Club made some 50 peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches at its January meeting for the Atlantic City Rescue Mission to distribute to the homeless in our community.

The 2nd-5th grade students made the sandwiches during their monthly after-school meeting on January 7 and the sandwiches were delivered to the mission this week by Club Advisor and school parent Jennifer DiMaio. The students also colored Bible verses with an encouraging message on flyers that were attached to the sandwich bags.

Mrs. DiMaio said the club’s February project will be to create Valentine’s Day care packages for children in the Ronald McDonald House. Twenty-one students participate in the after-school club and additional students are welcome to join at any time.