Detroit Public School Students Volunteer to Help City Residents

    DETROIT, April 17 /PRNewswire Interactive News Release/ -- The quiet
carousels of the Detroit Public Library will rock today with the sounds of
cheering, singing and applause.  Librarians beware, teenagers from five
Detroit high schools will kick off National Volunteer Week with a pep rally at
the Woodward library.
    After the rally, the more than 250 students from Cody, Finney, Mumford,
Northern and Pershing High Schools will begin their week of community
volunteer projects in the Detroit area.  Their projects are targeted at
helping Detroit residents in need, such as the elderly, homeless and children.
For example, a team from Northern High School will create an indoor and
outdoor play area for children who attend the Family Place.  They will also
donate items such as diapers, bedding and blankets, and develop educational
activities for the children.
    The program is called POWERTEAMS and is sponsored by the International
Union, UAW and General Motors.  Now in its third year, the program is designed
to encourage students to become community leaders through volunteerism.
Student teams are formed at the beginning of the school year to develop and
implement a community-based volunteer project.  The yearlong curriculum-based
program focuses on communication, volunteerism, leadership, problem solving
and team building.
    The program's moniker is an acronym for Positive Organizations Where
Everyone's Rewarded Through Engaging And Mentoring Students.  "The POWERTEAMS
program is designed to teach students the benefit of team building, problem
solving and other business skills," said Larry Knox, Co-Executive Director of
the UAW-GM Center for Human Resources (CHR).  Henderson Slaughter,
Co-Executive Director of the UAW-GM CHR, added that, "We are proud to support
the Detroit Public Schools students in a program that gives them the
opportunity to enrich their core education and provide needed community
service."  UAW-GM provided the students with facilitators to assist them with
their classroom curriculum.  The CHR also made funds available for the
students to implement their team-designed volunteer initiatives.
    The service learning curriculum encourages students to take an inventory
of their community to determine its needs.  "I like to volunteer and for me,
it is about recognizing that you shouldn't complain about what you don't have
and realize that you may have a lot more than others," said Pia Walton, a
student at Pershing High School.
    The 250 students in the program will be joined by classmates and UAW-GM
CHR employees to deliver more than 4,000 volunteer hours to more than 2,000
local area recipients.  The POWERTEAMS volunteers will visit local nursing
homes and senior centers to assist the elderly, as well as Children's
Hospital, two residential facilities for boys, a child development facility,
the Coalition On Temporary Shelter (C.O.T.S.) and Doorstep Homeless shelters.
    Laurie Dayton, Coordinator of Child Life Services at Children's Hospital
of Michigan said, "Nothing in my 20 years with Children's Hospital of Michigan
prepared me for the wonderful experience of working with the UAW-GM POWERTEAMS
project.  I never imagined such a well-orchestrated program and all the groups
involved need to be commended for this program linking the corporate world,
volunteering and service to the community."

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