Unanticipated lessons in senior projects

Madeline Wallace (left, back row) and Danielle Crawford (right, back row) with soccer campers. Wallace and Crawford sponsored a soccer camp as their senior project.

by Herald Staff Writer & CHERYL SCHWEIZER
| February 18, 2014 5:00 AM

MOSES LAKE - Every senior at every public high school in Washington has to complete a project. Among the options available to students is a project to benefit the community.

Some kids take that route, some don't. Shree Saini, Kayla Grigg, Danielle Crawford and Madeline Wallace took that route and said they are glad they did.

Danielle and Madeline put on a three-day soccer clinic, showing some of the skills they learned to girls who didn't have the fees for advanced training. Kayla put on a golf tournament to raise money for diabetes research. Shree has worked on a campaign to make people more aware of certain types of bullying behavior.

"I feel like if you help other people, it's for the greater good," Shree said. Good deeds create a "ripple effect," she said, that have an impact beyond the immediate effort.

Kayla said she has gotten a lot of support from the community, and wanted to give some of that back. Diabetes is a major health problem and has impacted her family, but people know relatively little about it, she said. The tournament was a way to help people understand as well as raising money for research, she said.

While seniors can build on knowledge they already have, at MLHS the senior project has to be a step outside the comfort zone. Seniors have to take a few risks.

Shree chose to talk about bullying, the kind that occurs not so much in words or actions as in attitude. She's been on the receiving end, she said, and "it's a really tough subject for me." At first, just talking about it with advisor Lynn McAlevy was really emotional, she said. But "I got the point where I wanted to do it."

She has talked at school assemblies, advertised, and is putting up posters to raise public awareness, she said. She built a website to let people know. "The website took forever," she said. The work has been worth it, however. Talking about it, pointing out the problem to others, has made it a lot easier to deal with it herself, Shree said.

Kayla said she didn't think a golf tournament would be easy, but on the other hand it wasn't supposed to be that hard. "I'll just put on a golf tournament and people will come," she said.

It turned out there were some things to learn about organizing a large project. "I was in so far over my head," Kayla said. "Scramble for a Cure" was at Moses Pointe, and as the organizer she had to work with the owners to schedule a date and come up with a price for course rental.

She was responsible for finding sponsors for specific holes and contests, and prizes for the tournament and the silent auction. She had to organize the dinner that followed the tournament. The tournament was a big success, and that was a challenge in itself. "I didn't expect that many teams."

Danielle and Madeline worked with kids as coaching assistants, so they figured their experience would make the project easier.

Yeah. "It was a little bit more challenging, being the coach," Danielle said.

"Stepping into that teaching role, that was like, 'whoa,"' Madeline said.

Now they were the coaches, they were in charge,and it was on them. "You have 20 eight- and nine-year-old girls that are your responsibility. It's a big challenge," Madeline said.

They were required to go out and find businesses that would donate water bottles and T-shirts, not to mention find a field will ing to host the clinic, find all the equipment from the soccer balls to the goals, recruit referees for the clinic-ending game. They had to come up with kid-friendly drills and lessons that still taught the kids the advanced skills. "And we had a photographer," Madeline said.

The soccer clinic was full, the golf tournament raised more than $4,000 for diabetes research and Shree brought attention to her project in a personal meeting with Superintendent of Public Instruction Randy Dorn.

At the end of her project she's faced some fears, grown a little, and helped others, Shree said. "I think that's a plus-plus."

Kayla said the job of getting in there, talking - and even bargaining - with adults taught her a few things. "You learn to mature very quickly," she said. "Don't be timid."

Madeline and Danielle said they questioned, at first, whether or not they could do it. Finding out that they could boosted their confidence, they said.

All four seniors advised juniors to get started on that senior project sooner rather than later. "Don't procrastinate," Madeline said. They got started early, finished early and avoided the stress of meeting that deadline. "We're all kind of carefree," she said.

The only task left is presenting the project to a panel of judges who evaluate each project. That will happen during the spring.