Celebrations of 2011: Serving Howell

Even from its beginnings, Seeds has included a diverse body of professionals with a wide array experiences and skill sets. We have in our number artists, educators, scientists, health professionals, members of law enforcement, engineers, and college students, all connected through our common vision of serving Tucson for its sake and the sake of Jesus who has called us to do so. We want God to get the glory for our actions!

Because of the diversity in our leaders and volunteers, we have the ability to serve according to a variety of skill sets. This is something we feel both blessed by and responsible for, and we hope to see even among our volunteers a cultivation of leadership and initiative as we brainstorm how to use our skills and strengths in a way that will benefit the community.

One example of this has been a volunteer of ours who aspires to be a teacher when he finishes school. As a way to serve Tucson's kids and deepen our service relationship with Howell, he has spent the last semester volunteering for one day a week reading with first-graders to help strengthen and bolster their literacy. He works one by one with struggling students to read children's stories back to him. As a teacher's aid in two different classrooms, he also volunteers to help students with the mathematics portion of their afternoon learning. This is a first step in what we hope will someday be a deeper capacity to offer tutoring to students of all ages.

Another example has been the creative talents of some of our other volunteers to provide all staff members with "Thank You" candy gift bags as a token of our appreciation. For the Thanksgiving holiday, we wanted to demonstrate that we are thankful for the chance to partner with Howell, and to grow alongside them as we ourselves learn more fully to serve.

Another opportunity we had for the holiday season was to offer a one-day-a-week after school program for parents whose work obligations might create trouble with normal school pick-up times. This was largely headed up by one of our leaders who is herself an educator at Howell, and was a pilot project to feel out our capability for these kinds of projects in the future.

Some rocks painted by the students who took part in Howell's after school
program.

Seeds looks forward to deepening our capacity to serve Howell and other communities in Tucson in the future, especially as we learn what we are capable of.