Overland Trail Elementary makes cards for U.S. military

One of the best parts of volunteering is that anyone can do it — even a child. In fact, kids may have the biggest hearts of all us.

That became evident in late February when Overland Trail Elementary completed its second volunteer outing with us. Beginning this semester, the school’s PTA asked us to help them schedule outings for their students. As you can imagine that presented some obstacles, but we viewed them more as opportunities and because of that — as well as some amazing leadership from Beth Petrikin and the PTA board — the following is what happened.

The school had 110 people show up to create thank you cards for deployed U.S. Military through Operation Gratitude. You read that right — 110 volunteers! We originally planned for 10 students and 10 parents, yet 35 student-parent combos and 40 after-school Y-Care students participated. In the end, it made history for us, becoming the largest group outing that we’ve orchestrated in our two-year history.

Talk about powerful, and it’s just the beginning. We’re hoping to help the school complete one volunteer outing per month every school semester. Think of the impact this will have on everyone involved and then think of how young they are — now that’s inspiring! Look for more updates from our junior volunteers in the months to come and if you’re interested in following in their footsteps, begin the scheduling process here.

IMPACT STATISTICS — IN 23 MONTHS, WE’VE HELPED 740 VOLUNTEERS COMPLETE 1,913.5 SERVICE HOURS FOR 42 CHARITABLE ORGANIZATIONS