News

Hello! My name is Faith Johnson and I am on the Rage U12 Orange team. For my community service project, I organized a run to raise money for the Lymphoma Research Foundation called, “Laps For Lymphoma!” I used this idea for my project because my grandma passed away from Hodgkin’s Lymphoma recently and I thought that it would be great to do a run in honor of her. I also love to run and it was a great chance to bring the community together for a good cause.

How the run worked was anybody who wanted to participate came to a track and we ran or walked as many laps as we could in an hour. They donated either by pledging an amount of money per lap or giving a flat donation. The run was a huge success and we exceeded my goal of $1,500 that I was hoping to raise! I got 32 donations and the grand total that I collected was… $1,685! It felt so awesome when I totaled up the checks and found out how much I had raised!

Throughout the process, this run has gained lots of meaning for me. When I first decided to organize the run, my grandma was fighting Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. About a week before the run was about to happen, she sadly passed away. A huge part of me was gone, but another part of me was encouraged and inspired to raise lots of money so that nobody else would have to fight the horrible disease. Each check that I received in the mail brought me so much joy and made me remember that I was working for such an important cause. I’m so honored to have been able to have “Laps For Lymphoma” and I hope that I will be able to do it again next year!

Our team is the U11 Grey team. Our names are Ella Gervasoni, Lauren Reilly, Molly Smith, and Olivia Martin.  For our service project we volunteered at the Parkview Senior Center.  We brought them cookies, read to them, painted their nails, and plan to make crafts with them in the future.

At first, we were a little nervous about how they might act towards us.  But after we met them we realized they were very kind and happy to have us there.  They asked us about ourselves and thought we were good readers.  We read picture books to them and they told us that we had “good language” and they liked the books that we chose.

 One woman named Gale had family that lived locally but when we asked about them and if they visited she said, “No, they don’t”.  She was very happy to have young visitors and it made us feel good that we were able to brighten their day just by visiting them and talking to them.

We also met a lady named Manuela who came from Mexico by herself when she was younger.  She never married and hasn’t seen any of her family since she moved to California.

We enjoyed being able to work with the seniors and make them happy. We didn’t get to visit as often as we’d like to but we plan to go visit again soon.  We can’t wait to go again!

Reese Lombardi U12 Orange
Sammie O’Brien U12 Orange

For our RAGE community service project we got together and made 20 tie blankets to give to the kids at Lucille Packard Children’s Hospital. We bought the material and made all the blankets to give to the kids. We decided to do this so we can put a smile on the kids faces. It is not fun to be in a hospital so if you give them a little present I could make their day. It is the little things that matter in life. The blankets we made will be delivered by a nurse that we know, who works with the children!

This leadership project was done by Taylor Metz and Allie Defazio. For our project we decided to raise money to donate to The American Brain Tumor Association. We chose to donate to this cause because we can relate to it. Our former assistant coach, Ashley Cingly, passed away from a brain tumor about 2 years ago. When we found out we had to do a community service project, this was the first thing that came to mind.

Ashley was only our soccer coach for a short time before she passed, but she left a huge impact on my team. She taught us to play everyday like it could be your last. Because it very well could be. It was really fun doing this project, because I knew we were raising money for a great cause. Thousands and thousands of people suffer from brain tumors so we were happy knowing we could be a part of donating to the American Brain Tumor Association.

Coming up with an idea to raise money and awareness for brain tumors was not easy. Taylor and I had several ideas but none were working out the way we wanted it to. After giving this project a lot of thought we had come up with the idea of doing a Raffle.We charged one dollar for one raffle ticket and asked them to write there name, phone number, and the basket number they wanted .We set up at the farmers market in Downtown Pleasanton, we thought this would be a smart place cause tons of people go there every Saturday. We set up a little booth with posters and 3 baskets. Everytime a person would come by we would chant are little logo we had come up with “come on over, great prizes and great cause.” We attracted tons of family’s! Some would ask why are we standing in the freezing cold doing this and we would tell them our story and how its good to raise awareness and the people were only more touched. In all Taylor and I had raised 161 dollars in just 2 hours we are so grateful to be surrounded by such loving people .

Taylor and I may have not known Ashley as well as others but her inspirational story has made us thrive to become better people. Speaking of Ashley to others made Taylor and I ponder about how thankful we our for to have the lives that we have. A elderly women had stopped by our table and stood there we had said the raffle is over but if you want to donate you can she just stood there for a sec and told us about how she had just found a brain tumor on Christmas Eve. Taylor and i were shocked to hear about this and talked to the women for a little and told her how you can only hope for the best we gave her hugs and she had carried on with her walk downtown. From that moment on Taylor’s life and mine had changed just a little, because it showed us that how people around you can be going through the same thing as you and you may not even know. Doing this project and raising this awareness made not only Taylor and I but those around us open there eyes.

My name is Kelly Fietz and I am on the RAGE U11 Grey Team. As part of the RAGE Leadership Program I chose to do my Community Service Project for the Dublin East Bay SPCA (Society For The Prevention Of Cruelty To Animals) because of my love for animals.

I decided to first start my project by visiting Petco and PetSmart, in Dublin, and asking them for donations. Both Managers were very generous and donated new items, that included toys and food, which I could take to the East Bay SPCA. I also submitted an online request to Petfood Express for donations but it can take up to 60 days to hear back.

I then contacted the Dublin East Bay SPCA Education Department, through an online form, and received an email back from the Humane Education Manager that for my Community Service Project I could make cat toys and dog treats.  This was a lot of fun. I used fleece and catnip to make the cat toys and cut up a cardboard box to make the cat scratcher. The dog biscuits were easy and fun to bake also.  I then made an appointment with the Education Director to bring in the donated items and the stuff Imade, to the Dublin location, and go on a tour of the facility. The staff was very friendly and let me go in several rooms where the cats live and give them the toys I made for them. I also got to see the dog areas and give a couple dogs a toy that was donated by the pet stores.

For the last part of my project I sent an email to family, friends, and parents of my 5th grade classmates asking them to donate used items like towels, sheets, and collars for the Dublin East Bay SPCA. I setup a box in my classroom at school for the donations and I got a great response. I then took another trip to Dublin to donate everything I had received.

I plan to continue to take in items that the SPCA needs and I also want to participate in some of their programs so I can learn more about caring for cats and dogs and also play and care for them while they are waiting for a home. This facility had the cutest cats and dogs and reminded me of an animal hotel. It made me feel good that they are taken such good care of by the staff.

My name is Sydney Walsh and I play for the U12 Orange team. For my community service project, my family and I helped the organization Turning Wheels for Kids make bikes for underprivileged kids for Christmas. Turning Wheels for Kids provides children with brand new bikes to encourage life long habits of exercise and outdoor activity.

My family and I went to the Pleasanton Fairgrounds, where we would build the bikes. The goal was to make 750 bikes. My mom and I were paired with an adult I didn’t know.  Luckily, he was an expert on bike building so we had a good partner.  We had to put the bike together, pump up the tires, and then roll it over to the Quality Control center.  Quality Control checks the bikes to make sure that they are perfect for the kids. The bikes were then loaded onto trucks were they were driven to a warehouse. Then local charities will pick them up and give them to kids in need. My group made 20 bikes out of the 750 bikes that entire group made.

Spending time on my project showed me that giving my time to help others is really important and that I made at least 20 kids really happy. It was fun to meet new people as we worked together. I learned how to communicate with people I had just met and work together to achieve the goal of 750 bikes. I had a lot of fun and I can only imagine the kids smiling faces on Christmas Day.