Service at Japhet
“With the gift of knowledge and the understanding of moral and spiritual values comes an obligation to help mankind.”
— Japhet School Philosophy, point 6
Giving students the opportunity to uplift humanity is an integral part of Japhet School. We believe that all children are inherently good, and they demonstrate daily a natural and innate desire to help and make the world a better place. By fostering this desire and providing opportunities during the school day and at home with their families, we strive to develop lifelong habits of service.
Our Monday morning INSPO assemblies are natural times to bring service opportunities to our students. They often work in multi-age groups on projects like making posters to promote a drive or making a craft that will become a gift.
Each year we have an overall theme, around which various activities are centered. Keep reading for a summary of what we’ve done recently. You are welcome to be a part of it!
- Kids for Peace: Japhet School launched our own chapter of this international organization that creates peace through youth leadership, community service, global friendships, and thoughtful acts of kindness.
- PeacePacks: School supplies and gently used children’s books were donated by families in the Japhet community. During Family Service Night, we stuffed dozens of Peace Packs and sent them to a school in Grenada where children live in poverty.
- Peace Quotes: Students who are member of Kids for Peace went to a local senior living center where they sang and distributed handmade inspirational quotes that promote peace.
- Collection for Local Shelter: Every year our Recycling Committee hosts a collection of winter gear or hygiene products to benefit a local shelter.
Past years:
- e-Luminate: A year-long service project, students are creating an “e-book” (electronic book) to send to new libraries in Sierra Leone, Africa. Electronic books, unlike paper books, do not create waste or become lost, and are easily sharable. The book we are creating is called the “ABC’s of Character,” which is an alphabet book with each letter representing a character quality. Students chose the qualities and illustrated the book.
- Earth Day Collage: To celebrate Earth Day, students created a collage of the state of Michigan using all recycled materials as the art medium.
- Matrix Angel Tree: For the holiday season, we connected with Matrix Human Services in southeast Detroit. During our annual Family Service Night, we prepared more than 100 donated new presents and assembled 150 candy bags for Matrix to share with families who might not otherwise afford to purchase new presents.
- Dolls for India: Our students helped color, cut, and assemble more than 200 paper dolls for impoverished children in India. Japhet students were humbled to learn that they were making a child’s very first and only toy. This service project was brought to Japhet by Rotary International.
- Cameron’s Crusade: One of our own families has a special-needs child named Cameron. Specifically, they needed a car lift, gait trainer, and a ramp for their home. Together with our Parent Support Group, we dedicated service efforts in winter and spring to support this family with fundraising Family Fun Nights and a grassroots effort to build the ramp at their home.
- Holiday Hope: We fulfilled wishes for a local family, donating new pillows, boots, winter coats, sheet sets, and more. Classrooms went on field trips to stores and booksellers to choose their own donations. It culminated in Family Service Night, when students and their families wrapped these presents together the evening before they were delivered.
- 100-Day Celebration for the Detroit Rescue Mission: To honor the 100th day of school, Kindergarten and Primary Class students made a goal to collect 100 travel-size hygienic items to donate to this charity, and they collected nearly 300!
- Earth Day: Students engage in a variety of age-appropriate activities to celebrate Earth Day, from cleaning up our playground and neighborhood to decorating nearby Hollywood Market grocery bags with an Earth Day theme to remind neighbors to be green!
- Rouge Rescue: Japhet’s fifth- through eigth-grade students combined hands-on environmental science with service as they learned about the health of the Rouge River in spring.
- Woolly Winter: Japhet families joined together to donate sufficient funds during the December holiday season to send a sheep to a community in need.
- Books for Bees: Japhet’s Primary Class of first- and second-graders hosted a used-book sale to raise funds to send a beekeeping setup to a community in need.
- Rabbits to the Rescue: Japhet students voted to raise funds to send a trio of rabbits. During InSPO, students reported how they were working at home by doing extra chores like shoveling for neighbors, doing laundry, and more to earn money on their own.
- Sing for Goats! Japhet’s Intermediate Class of fifth- and sixth-grade students sponsored a Talent Show in which the whole school was involved! Admission funds were plentiful to send two goats to another community through Heifer.
