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Our military men and women have served and sacrificed so much to give everyone the freedom we have today.   My name is Jasmine Cochiaosue.   I am a member of the U12 RAGE Orange Team.   I want to thank my coach, Nina Cefalo, the RAGE organization, Erika Carlson, and all those involved in the Leadership Academy.   I have been given a great opportunity to show appreciation to our military heroes, past and present.

It is obvious that many people care, but they just don’t know how to show their support.   I want to share my experience and show all that even a small effort goes a long ways to recognizing and honoring our United States Armed Forces.

I decided to do a pledge run to raise money to donate to the Wounded Warrior Project.   The Wounded Warrior Project helps bring awareness, but most of all provides programs and services to our injured military heroes.   My family and friends donated over three hundred dollars as I ran the Bah Humbug 5K Run in San Ramon.   All of the pledges were donated to the Wounded Warrior Project.  

December 12^th was known as Wreaths across America Day.   I joined thousands of volunteers to lay wreaths, giving tribute and sending the message of how important it is to remember our fallen heroes.   I am grateful for the event as I was able to honor my grandfather by personally placing a wreath on his tombstone at the Sacramento Valley National Cemetery in Dixon.

Our military heroes have done so much for our country and we can never truly thank them enough.   I have started a campaign to have letters sent to our troops overseas.   With the assistance of the USO, I hope to give a little show of appreciation for their service and sacrifice.

I want to thank my family and friends who continue to encourage me as I continue my journey to express my gratitude and support to our military heroes.

Our names are Emma Harbourne, Chloe Yeagly, Ella Patterson and Katie Guerra.  For our service project we collected canned food items and toiletries for those in need.  We chose the victims of the Valley Fire for the canned food donations.  We were so sad for them because they lost everything. The toiletries were donated to the Tri-Valley Haven in Livermore, which is a community resource for adults and children who are homeless or in need.

We started this project by handing out flyers attached to paper bags explaining what we were doing.  We dropped these off to friends, family and neighbors and were amazed at how many toiletries and canned food items we received.  We got together and sorted, counted and organized all of our donations.  We received 430 canned food items (396 pounds!!!) and 680 toiletry items!!!  Most of the toiletry items were soap, shampoo, conditioner, toothbrushes, toothpaste and lotion.

Our team is so excited to be a part of this incredible experience and give these items to those who really need it by Christmas.  We had so much fun with this project and realized that if everyone gives a little bit we can make all make a big difference.

We are members of the U11 Pleasanton Rage Orange and White teams. Our names are Ava Hofstede, Elizabeth Fineberg, Elizabeth Williams, Jordyn Scanlon, Lily Keegan, Kianna Tahmessebi, Paige Morgan and Sophia Marxoux. For our Leadership Service Project we chose the Valley Humane Society because we all LOVE animals!  As a group we decided it was important to do a project that helped out in our hometown of Pleasanton.

Leadership requires both a voice and good actions. Pets don’t have a voice to ask for help so we used ours to help them. We also used our actions to make their life and our community better. Together we made over 40 fleece blankets to help the cats and kittens stay warm and feel welcome at the shelter. The blankets we made by hand.  We also made over 100 cat-nip toys to provide some exercise and fun in ‘Kitty City.’  There is also a wish list at Valley Humane Society for much needed shelter items.  We each donated additional supplies to help the cats and dogs feel more comfortable and less stressed.

As the saying goes, ‘Many hands make light work.’  In our Leadership class we learned how important it is to work together and to listen to each other’s ideas.  We also learned that leaders have a tough and valuable job, which can sometimes be hard to balance. They have to be fair, work hard and be a role model for the team.  We enjoyed this project because it showed us how much we can accomplish as a group.  Making the blankets and toys felt good because we knew we were doing something important for our community.

NICU Books

Hi! My name is Sophia Minnite and my whole group plays on U12 premier. My group decided to give books to the families that have babies in the NICU (Neo-Natal Intensive Care Unit) during the holidays. The NICU is a quiet, caring and loving environment for preemie babies, but having a baby in the NICU can be stressful, boring, and emotional. Most of the day, family members watch and pray for their babies and reading to your baby in the NICU can help with development, hearing your voice, and taking up time. So we provided books for the families to get them through the holidays, hoping they will be home with their babies as soon as possible.

My group and I wrapped and wrote quick notes inside of children picture books. Then, after a soccer game, we all drove out to Kaiser in Walnut Creek and delivered the wrapped books. The NICU nurses were so thoughtful and excited when we arrived and handed them the books. They said they would pass them out throughout the whole year and holiday season. This was a wonderful and very self-satisfying experience for everybody.

Hello! Our names our Gwen, Samaan, and Carly (left to right). We are from RAGE U12 white. For our community service project we decided to help out at the Alameda County Food Bank. We decided to help out the food bank because they needed volunteers and thought why not help out some of the people in need?

The Alameda County Food Bank is a warehouse that holds a bunch of healthy produce. They gather up volunteers that help package food on a daily basis. That day we were bagging oranges. The people that worked there said that the oranges don’t have to be perfect because they weren’t picky like us, they were just grateful to have food. This made us sad but we were glad that we got to help someone out that day.

At the food bank we did learn a lot. Did you know.. that they said that we could end world hunger by in 2018?! We didn’t believe at first but realized they were serious. With all the donations they got and what they had, we CAN end world hunger by 2018. Moreover, they taught us more about that stuff and to be grateful for what you had.

When they gave us a tour around, they had almost an acre of the warehouse with just fresh produce. And when we got more deeper in the tour, they showed us wine boxes. Of course there wasn’t any wine in there. Instead, meals like pasta noodles and pasta sauce with healthy snacks were in their waiting to be given to a family that needs it. This again made us happy that we got to help someone out that day.

We learned a lot at the Alameda County Food Bank. We also got a lifetime memory experience. It was good to know that we got to help a variety of families out. It makes them a whole lot brighter, which then makes us even happier than we already are which later on puts us in a good mood! Overall, we had fun and enjoyed being there.

Leadership Service Project

By: Lindsay Otto, Katy Nanney, & Jordan Peters

Team: U14 Orange

For our leadership assignment we chose a project where we collected supplies from our teammates and used them to create birthday boxes. These boxes would then go to kids who aren’t able to celebrate their birthdays. We asked each of our teammates to bring materials for a box. These materials were cake mix, frosting, $10 gift, books, and decorations. Each box was also labeled a certain age range, like an 8 year old girl.

All throughout the last week of October, our team brought us boxes of materials. We later met up to put together and wrap the boxes. Along with it, we made cute birthday cards. Adding a few things the boxes lacked, we filled each box with equal amounts of gifts, decorations, and cake. After, we emailed a Livermore shelter and scheduled a drop off date. On November 25 we dropped off the birthday boxes at the Tri Valley Haven Shelter. They were very grateful for what we had brought in and thanked us for our 15 birthday boxes. This project was really fun and we had a great time getting together. It was a bit hard organizing everything, but we still had an awesome time in the end.

My name is Meaghan Penrice and I am a goalie for the Rage U13 Orange team. I worked with Lizzy Shriber for my community service project and we did a bake sale to help support the National Stroke Association! A few days before the bake sale, Lizzy’s grandmother passed away suddenly of a stroke, which brought us the idea of donating our money to the NSA! The National Stroke Association works hard on developing the prevention, acute treatment, and rehabilitation for strokes. They provide life-saving stroke information and give voices to those denied their rights because of strokes.

We got together to do our bake sale at the Holiday Christmas Parade in downtown Pleasanton on the 5th of December. Lizzy made seven layer cookies and chocolate chip cookies and I made brownies and cupcakes, all for one dollar. Along with those, we sold candy canes for 25 cents each.
Business was slow during the start as people were watching the parade, but as we got later into the parade, more and more people showed up. Lizzy’s seven layer cookies were very popular with the adults and the brownies, cookies, and cupcakes were popular with children.

I had made a goal for us to raise at least $200, because our prices were pretty low. But, we exceeded our goal and got $313.85!
Doing this community service project made me feel pretty good about myself and how I was donating over $300, to help the fight against strokes. While it’s not very much, it can still help towards the association. By helping the NSA, it made me feel happy that they could use the money for preventing strokes, allowing more families to stay together. This whole project was a great experience for me. We’re really happy that we exceeded our goal by some way, and that the money we raised can be used to help the NSA.

Hi my name is Lizzy Shriber. For my Rage Leadership project Meaghan Penrice and I decided to have a bake sale downtown Pleasanton for the Christmas parade. My grandmother recently passed away from a stroke and I thought that it would be great to honer her. Megan and I both made Christmas sweets to sell and made more than $270 to donate to the National Stroke Association! We both felt very good after and knew this was for a great cause. Not only did we get to raise money, we also enjoyed watching the festive and exciting Christmas parade right in front of us!
 

My name is Kayli and I am on the U12 Premier team. When I heard that we would be doing a leadership community service project I knew exactly what to do, I wanted to help the hungry kids in the world.  

So on Thursday night my mom and I went to our church’s Food Pantry. Because it was the week before Thanksgiving, I helped pass out turkeys and groceries for the THanksgiving feast to the needy people in our community.  That was only the first half.

I also went to Kids Against Hunger to pack food for the needy people around the world. I went on Saturday and packed meals for the families in the Philippines.  My friends helped me as well as their parents from our church.  With over one hundred volunteers, we were able to  pack about 20,000 meals that consisted of rice, dried vegetables, vitamin powder, and soy protein.  In the Philippines we are making a huge difference because one bag can feed a whole family for a day.  If we didn’t do this they might not have gotten any food that day.   After we finished packing all the meals, the food will get shipped to the Philippines and be given to staff from Kids Against Hunger to feed needy families there.

Over the past few years, Kids Against Hunger has raised a lot of money to help fund their services.  Different places like Haiti, Philippines, and Africa get the food that we pack for their benefit.  Kids Against Hunger is having a huge success because of volunteers helping the needy!

This project was surprisingly fun, even though its was packing food. Doing this made me feel good inside!

 My name is Ella Piergrossi.  I am in sixth grade and on the U13 White Team.  I was excited to be a part of the RAGE Leadership Academy and complete a community service project.  Although many community service projects benefit the less fortunate, I wanted to support some of the people who risk their lives and take care of our community.  I chose to focus on my local fire station, Station 2.​ ​

The first step was visiting the station.  Even though it’s less than a five minute drive from my house, I had never been there or seen it before.  That gave me the opportunity to meet some of the firefighters and ask a lot of questions.  I learned each firefighter works a shift of 48 straight hours, each shift has 4 firefighters, and there are 3 shifts.  

Not being with their families around the holidays, I wanted the firefighters to have some holiday spirit in the station.  In order to make sure each of the three shifts were shown how much the community appreciates them, I brought

​Christmas trees, cards, ornaments, treats on three different days.  However, I didn’t do this alone.  I sent out about 30 letters to people in the Station 2 service area, so they could get involved too.  On December 22nd, I organized a station tour. About 25 people showed up to meet the firefighters.  Many of them brought treats, ornaments, and cards for the firefighters as well. 

I found out Station 2 services Hart Middle School, so I involved Mrs. Geasa’s class in the project.  As a class we made 31 puzzle piece wreaths as ornaments.  The puzzle pieces we used were from a super hero puzzle because the firemen are our superheroes.  As a class we also made personalized thank you notes.  The ornaments decorated the trees and the notes were given to each firefighter.

I really enjoyed doing this project.  Not only did we give back to the people who protect our community, but we also got to learn a lot about what firefighters do.  Even though giving back and learning were an amazing part of this project, my favorite part was making personal relationships with the people who risk their lives each and every day for me, my friends, my family, and the community of Pleasanton.  Additionally, this project taught me how to lead, learn, take responsibility, and most of all how to help my community.