Portland High School Students Donate Time for Community Focused Day of Caring

Most all of Portland High School students participated in a community-wide "Day of Caring" on Friday afternoon. The event was organized by Portland school teachers as part the Family-Community Involvement section of the district-wide Professional Learning Community.

Christine Rockey, Portland High School Principle, told the Beacon that the Professional Learning Community (PLC) has four sections: Multi-Tier System; Family-Community Involvement; Technology; and Teacher Growth. The PLC also sponsors "Trunk-or-Treat" in the fall.

The "Day of Caring" event, coordinated by Portland teacher Allison DeGroot, allows students to identify and choose a number of projects that they would like to be involved in on a designated Friday afternoon in April. The students are then released after lunch, under the supervision of a Portland school staff member, to work on the project they chose. This year some of the projects included: performing with the Jazz Band for students at Westwood Elementary; Cleaning up at community parks; Landscaping entry way at Portland High School; Picking up trash at Grand River-I-96 Park and Rides as well as the River Trail and Bogue Flats.

Jon DenHouter's Creative Writing cadre chose to distribute Beacon posters to local businesses and to identify potential stories from the businesses to highlight for a free one-time publication in the Beacon. The experience encouraged the students to learn more about local businesses and will give them an opportunity to write about a local business resource that they might normally not be exposed to. Look for their stories in upcoming Beacon editions.

Pictured from left to right: Bridget Crawford, Harley Knapp, Audrey Frazee, Alexis Gurski, Sami Rushin and Danielle Curtiss.

Viktor Brown, Jared Showerman, Ruthie Fedewa, Katie Stallard and Zack Miller are not pictured, but also assisted in distrbuting Beacon posters.