Lemonade stand

My name is Gurudas Muthukaruppan. I am a 5th grader. This past summer I ran a lemonade stand for 3 days and raised around $3k for the Love to Share Foundation of America. In the lemonade stand, to make it interesting, we had a raffle with 5 prizes in it. The night before the first day of the lemonade stand we passed out flyers in a our neighborhood for about 50 houses. We had in our kitchen, popsicles, ice creams, Oreos and of course lemonade. On the last day of the lemonde stand, my friend and I went out on a scooter and bicycle around the community and passed out more fliers. Also the same day we annouced the raffle and gave out the prizes.

Book club in hopkinton

Introduction

Love to Share Foundation America contacted three 8th graders from Hopkinton, Massachusetts, to start a club. They all collectively started a Book Club. The Book Club would inspire children to be confident in their reading and writing capabilities.

Our Story

During the summer before 8th grade, Kashvi, Aanya, and I, (Akshadha) discussed hosting a club for elementary schoolers. Immediately, our minds went to a book club. As middle schoolers who love to read, the idea of inspiring young students to do the same, as well as helping them grow throughout their reading journey, was very exciting. We knew it would be challenging and would take a lot of planning and effort, but we persevered. We wanted this to be fun as well as educational. Book Club was one of our first opportunities to be leaders and showcase what we have learned as readers up until this point. We faced many challenges but stayed focused and committed. There were classes where we only had a few students interested. We also encountered many technical difficulties with Zoom. Some students couldn't turn their video/mic on., or we could not share their screen. These challenges encouraged us. We found ways to engage all the students by balancing fun games and activities along with lessons and writing prompts. The students were so eager to learn, and that made us optimistic to continue. Overall, we are delighted with how this club turned out. We can't wait until next summer.

At a glance

Topics

Elements of poetry such as onomatopoeia, personification, and similes.

How can one write stories efficiently?

Books

We read the book Front Desk by Kelly Yang. Front Desk is a perfect book for Middle and Elementary schoolers, and it incorporates many topics that would be useful during our lessons. We read several chapters each week and answered discussion questions about them. Throughout the club, we did many fun projects as well.

Love to Share Foundation

Overall, we could only have done this with the support of Love to Share Foundation. We are very grateful that we had this opportunity. Love To Share Foundation is helping many students improve themselves, and we are incredibly thankful that we could be a part of this.

Speech and debate club in hopkington

Mahathi Manikandan, Hopkington, MA

On behalf of Love to Share Foundation America, Mahathi Manikandan, conducted a speech and debate club this summer in her neighborhood to teach children not only to research a topic but also to write about it. The club focused on topics such as:

-Important vocab words in debate

-Writing an opening statement

-Writing and developing arguments

-Writing closing statements

Mahathi is a youth volunteer and middle schooler from Boston, Massachusetts. She also led the debate workshop to teach kids ranging from the ages of 8-10, Some of the issues debated were:

-Should middle schools have recess

-Should schools have more extended lunches

-Should schools start at a later time

Every week, 5-10 kids from Hopkinton would show up at my door eager to learn how to debate against their peers and become more confident with their speaking skills. Thus, the debate club would prepare them for future opportunities at school or speaking tournaments. This summer was my first time getting a chance to discuss a topic I enjoyed learning about. Every week, I had a good or not-so-good experience. Most of these experiences brought learnings with them. For example, when the kids would research a topic, sometimes they would present it very well, and sometimes, they could have been better, but I learned how they brought in different perspectives and what we could do to perfect a skill. Another challenge was the need for more communication, and I was curious if some kids would show up. I learned that if I initiated the contact, we could bridge that lack. My experience with the clubs had its ups and downs; it was one of a kind and something that I purely enjoyed and hope to continue next summer.