• A Message from ODW Headquarters
• Operation Day's Work at the Newton School
• Update from North Dakota
• ODW Expands at Shorewood
• An Update on ODW at Thetford Academy in Vermont
• Boston Celtics Honor ODW Advisor

I have added a few things to this months newsletter mailing. In this packet you will find: 1) a copy of the January Newsletter, 2) a copy of the ODW Constitution as amended at our convention, 3) a copy of the final report from our project in Haiti that ODW students raised money for in the 1998-1999 school year, and 4) a copy of a curriculum packet about foreign assistance that may be useful in your school.

I hope you will share these materials with everyone involved in ODW at your school. There are also many materials available through the web site at: http://odw.info.usaid.gov. Please explore the website for items that can help your school with ODW.

In the next few weeks I will be sending out information on Nepal as well as putting links about Nepal on the web site

The web boardroom can be found in the "ODW Boardroom" section of the web site. We have also created a boardroom for ODW advisors. Please check the boardroom regularly and put up messages, questions, or anything else you would like to share. You can attach documents, and link to web sites in the boardroom. You can also start new topics for discussion by clicking the "POST" button in the upper left hand corner.

By Lauren Harris

Sitting atop a hill in South Strafford, Vermont, stands our Newton School, a small rural school of about 170 students and teachers, kindergarten through 8th grade. This is a tightly woven community of students and teachers who are all committed to learning. This is the school's second year as a member of Operation Day's Work. Last year, the Thetford Academy of Thetford, Vermont, helped us immensely to organize our workday. This year we have a much better grasp of what needs to be done.

This spring we plan to do many things. First of all, we want to have an education night for members of the community who are interested in knowing more about ODW. We are hoping to educate the participants about ODW in general, the chosen country, the chosen proposal, and what we are doing in the school. We hope to recruit at least one school in our area that might be interested in joining ODW. We also plan to educate the younger students in our school. By doing all of these things we will be helping Operation Day's Work become much more well known in our area.

Within the Newton School there is a dedicatedgroup of students and teachers committed to making Operation Day's Work thrive. Noah Chute, Wesley Hardy-Johnson, Joanna Matson, Mandy Janoo, and Lauren Harris have chosen to be the core 8th grade leaders that will pave the way for the rest of the school! Noah is a committed member of ODW. We are proud to be working with him. Wes has so many creative ideas that he has contributed to ODW. Johanna is organized and takes great notes! Mandy brings such a great feel to ODW and is always there when we need her! Lauren is our National Committee Member and is having a great year so far. Diana Leddy, Julie Morton, and Rebecca Seibel are our amazing advisors. They are all committed to Operation Day's Work and to helping us! Noah, Wesley, Johanna, Mandy, and Julie Morton were our proud representatives at the annual ODW Convention in Minnesota, and they did an awesome job!! We also have many other leaders in the 7th and *th grade that will organize a great workday.

We are all looking forward to a great year and are pleased to be involved with such a great organization.

It's been a great ODW year for Schroeder so far. We've started meeting in our three committees, and we have some great new students joining up. One of our main goals this year is to have a better International Day with more classes participating. We hope we can make it a success buy communicating more with teachers ahead of time. Our advertising and promotion committee is working on spreading the word about ODW, and the work day and international day committees are doing a great job planning the two big days. We hope we can keep up the good work and make this year a success!

-Katie Madden, grade 8, Schroeder Middle School

By Alex Naylor

At Shorewood Intermediate School, ODW started out with less than ten students. Now, that number has almost doubled. Although some students who originally wanted to join could not make the meeting time because of other appointments, the students who could make it to the Operation Day's Work meeting put up signs to tell other students about the activities. The signs worked, and now we have many good students involved.

Seventh graders are...

Sylvie Armstrong, Morgan Carr-Markell, Grace Edgar, Alex Naylor, Zander Strommen

Eighth graders are...

Caitlin McMurtry (delegate), Zoë Cohen, Ryan Laflin, Drew Yerkes, Kieven Sperry, Kyle Peschel, Gretta Grayzel, Jeremiah Weingrod

Although this may not like seem a lot compared to other schools, SIS is fairly small, consisting of under 300 students in only the seventh and eighth grades.

The ODW class at TA is scheduled to begin January 16, at which point we hope to kick off the process of educating the school and community about ODW and Nepal. Several students have been doing independent studies in preparation for this piece of the project. The entire ODW class has been meeting weekly to discuss and plan for the second semester, when the class gets underway.

Before the winter break, we welcomed Leeli Bonney, a woman who has traveled to Nepal on a number of occasions and who is currently there distributing over 200 polar fleece jackets to children in the villages she visits. We also hosted students and teachers from two other Vermont schools who were studying service learning and were interested in the nature of the ODW program here.

We are looking forward to a visit from Ly Vuong and to the upcoming ODW events.

The Boston Celtics and several other NBA teams ( yours ? ) are proud to recognize individuals who commit acts above and beyond their everyday lives. At each Celtics' home game, the "Heroes Among Us" award is presented to an individual who has a humanitarian spirit and has made a lasting contribution to the community.

ODW- Broad Meadows was surprised to receive a letter saying that our ODW Advisor Mr. Adams had been selected as a Celtics' "Hero."

The letter from the Celtics reads, in part :

"Because of your commitment to making a difference in the lives of your students through projects like OPERATION DAY'S WORK-USA, the Boston Celtics have selected Ron Adams, teacher and ODW advisor, as a "Hero Among Us." The presentation will be made during the December 18, 2000 game versus the Dallas Mavericks."
Signed by Meghan O'Brien Wright, Director of Public Affairs, Boston Celtics

During a time out in the 2nd quarter of the December 18th game, the Celtics' public address announcer read this to the fans as ODW advisor Ron Adams stood proudly on the Celtics court :

"Ladies and Gentlemen, please turn your attention to center court and meet a true 'Hero Among Us.'

"Technology and globalization are connecting our children to the world in ways unimaginable just a few years ago.

"In 1994, students in Ron Adams' Broad Meadows Middle School classroom in Quincy, Massachusetts, came face to face with child labor when they met Mr. Adams' special guest speaker, former child slave Iqbal Masih of Pakistan. Angered that slavery still existed, his 12 year old students used email and organized other students in all 50 states to raise $ 147,000 to establish a school for former child slaves like Iqbal in Pakistan.

"In 1996, that "School for Iqbal" opened its doors in Kasur, Pakistan. Over 700 Pakistani children have attended that school. Many never attended school before.

"In 1998, to share lessons learned building that school in Pakistan, his students joined with students in 7 other pilot schools nationwide to co-found a new, student run, project called Operation Day's Work-USA.

"Participating ODW students from Oregon to Vermont plan together for months by email to perform ONE DAY of sponsored, community service to raise funds to bring an educational project to children in one, poor, developing country each year.

"That first year, the Operation Day's Work students chose Haiti and raised $ 31,000 which brought livestock, seeds and literacy to 2,000 Haitian children.

"In 1999, Operation Day's Work grew to 31 schools in 14 states, and those students raised $ 41,000 and expanded an orphanage in El Salvador.

"This year, the ODW students voted to help poor, working children in Nepal.

"Operation Day's Work is not charity. It is kids here, helping kids far away, to help themselves.

"Over 700 Quincy students have been involved in these global projects proving that you are never too young to care, never too young to take action. Congratulations, Mr. Adams, tonight's Boston Celtics' Hero Among Us Award winner."

The crowd actually listened and then burst into applause. ODW is a hit with the Celtics and their fans.

To help celebrate this award, the Boston Celtics donated 25 tickets to the game to ODW students and advisors at Broad Meadows Middle School. They were $55 or $72 floor seats! Further support was provided by the Quincy Public Schools which donated a yellow school bus for the night. Further support was provided by local merchants who donated pizza and sodas. We had a blast, and we taught the house about ODW. Go Celts! Go ODW!

Attending the game were ODW students: Laura Bloomer; former National Board Member Deirdre Faherty; Meaghan Luce; Colleen Luce; Jenn Cunio; Kim LeBel; Mike LeBel; Joe Ferris; Katie Walsh; Katie O'Driscoll; Kerri McAteer; Stephanie Tereault; Jonathan Conso and Elizabeth Bloomer among others. We took non-ODW people, too, hoping they'll join later.

It is very important to share what your school is doing with everyone else in ODW so that we can learn from each other and be as effective as possible. I hope that you will use the newsletter and online boardroom as tools to do that!

Check out the boardroom and the online newsletter at our web site: http://odw.info.usaid.gov

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