I never thought about how much I have. Stanley Clark has always been my second home since I was only four years old. I’ve made so many different friends here that are at this point, family. I have built so many relationships that I value greatly. I have watched my classmates grow up and mature and I am so thankful I got the opportunity to go to The Stanley Clark School for ten whole years. When I entered middle school, we started to go on service learning field trips to different places twice every year.

Early seventh grade year, my grade went on a service learning field trip to Goodwill. There we separated into groups and helped organize the clothes, sort shoes, price items, sort books, and throw away unwanted items. Everyone who worked there was super nice and seemed really passionate about helping people get the things they need. Since everyone’s attitude was great, it also helped lift up my attitude because it seemed like everyone was really passionate about being there. While my group and I were working, we found geodes. They allowed us to take one home and I still have it in my room. We were at Goodwill for about three hours, which wasn’t as much time as I wanted because the time flew by so fast. It still was super fun with the time I had.

Later in seventh grade year, volunteers from the Ronald McDonald House came to our school and told us a little about the corporation. To help raise money, we collected pop tabs for the majority of the year. When the volunteers came, we made little cardboard “houses” for the pop tabs to go in. To help with the collection of pop tabs, our school started a competition in middle school to motivate the students to collect them. Whoever collected the most pop tabs got a dress down day. We also made blankets for The Ronald McDonald House for families who didn’t have many sources of warmth.

All of our service learning field trips really show me the different ways people live and have put my life into perspective. It really showed me how lucky and fortunate I am to have the life I do. I loved helping sort everything and helping people in need. I really hope we can do something like that this year and help more people.