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My friend Max has brain cancer.He had an event to raise awareness for pediatric cancer(you may have seen him on Jimmy Kimmel). At this event the community loomed against cancer to build the longest Rainbow Loom chain in the world. The event went great, but now Max had a lot of loom in his garage that was not being used. I brought this up to my class and we decided we had to solve this problem by adding compassion, the fifth C.

The students in my class worked together to come up with a solution to the problem of too much loom. We decided to repurpose the loom chain into bracelets, necklaces, earings, and jumpropes. We sold our products during recess and raised money on Crowdrise through the community for the Max Love Project, a non profit raising awareness and research for pediatric cancers. We raised over $1,400!! This is the video I made to document out process. Enjoy!

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Students in my class complete self-selected community service projects. They can serve their school, local, national, or global community. Students must plan and implement the project themselves. Because they have chosen the project, they are invested in it. It is a multi-month effort and has some pretty amazing outcomes.

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Our school does this Food Packing event every Thanksgiving. We call it Give Thanks, Give Back. It is a big undertaking, but everyone gets into it, K-12. We ask our younger kids to earn the money they donate. We ask the older kids to give up something, Starbucks, trip to movies, etc., and donate instead. Everyone comes together over two does to do the actual food packing. A very impactful experience.

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High school students use poetry to expose truth about public housing in Richmond, CA

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High school students use poetry to expose truth about public housing in Richmond, CA

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Deandre Evans, Will Hartfield and Donte Clark use poetry to reveal the housing crisis in Richmond, Calif. Watch them recite "This is Home" in a video created by Off/Page Project and read the full text of the poem at the bottom of this article.

For Deandre Evans, Will Hartfield and Donte Clark, writing poetry isn't solely self-expression; it's also a means of reporting a story affecting their community.

Through the Off/Page Project, a collaboration between Youth Speaks and The Center for Investigative Reporting, the three poets joined CIR's Amy Harris in the field while she conducted research on mismanagement of public housing in Richmond, Calif.

José Vadi, the director of Off/Page Project, calls it "source storytelling."

"It's using source material from investigative reporting, in addition to our own personal narratives and our own personal history, to create new forms of storytelling," Vadi told chief arts correspondent Jeffrey Brown.

"We wanted to reach a younger audience and have the conversation centered around them ... kind of putting youth in the driver's seat of their own stories, and the issues that are reflected through their work."

Evans, Hartfield and Clark created "This is Home," a poem with investigative elements, fact-checked to report what's actually happening on the ground.

For Vadi, combining journalism and poetry is a natural progression.

"Spoken word, like investigative reporting, is all about exposing the truth."

PBS member station KQED reported on the housing crisis in Richmond, Calif. To learn more about what's happening on the ground, watch their story below:

You can also read Amy Harris's article accompanied by photos by Lacy Atkins of Richmond's residents in the San Francisco Chronicle. Tune in to Monday night's PBS NewsHour to see Jeffrey Brown's report on Off/Page Project. You can watch on our Ustream channel at 6 p.m. EST or check your local PBS listings. This is Home
Deandre Evans:
This is where rodents and roaches are like family
'cause we share the same meals
Top ramen, cereal, Kool Aid
Its no family complaints
Everything is enjoyed that we refrigerate and put in cabinets
We feel thirty-below air from cracked windows
No heat for when Richmond wind blows
No AC to cool down the weather that makes us sweat
Neglect is the only thing we get
Fungus disintegrating the walls
Bathroom sink replaces bathtub
Only place where I can wash my body
Everybody comes through the door except people who repair
Why are elevators broken in a place made for people who are disabled?
How can we use stairs when we
roll the wheels of our chairs and lean our bodies on canes and walkers?
No one is responsive - feel like I'm talking to myself
When help is asked to restore something as simple as a lock on a gate
So I can feel safe
Never get any phone calls returned
Don't get to talk to anything more than an machine,
This is home -
it's not built for us to survive.

William Hartfield-Peoples:
I see barren hallways
Broken cameras
Uninvited guests
There's no service here
As if a sea of people were cast away on an island
to fend for themselves
The weather outside is frightening
The absent guards' ghost remains in its rightful place
A world ran by village rules
We exist only to survive
Accustomed to the law of the land
Mind your business
Pay no mind to that body that just fell
from the top floor the other night.
Silence has become an ally to fear
the fear of being evicted,
Like a sickness the madness of this reality soaks in to a simple statement:
"Better here than out there"
I see Juanita:
a double amputee bound to a chair,
hands scarred not by surgery or disease,
but by a room and a door that a wheelchair wasn't made for,
Everyday she pushes through,
Everyday she pushes on because
This is home.
Look at Mama Hall:
81-years young and she still keeping a routine
Weary eyes maintaining order with disorder
Day in and day out
and if the proper authorities won't help
Then they help themselves
Whether it be mice nesting in the walls
Dope dealers in the halls
Or prostitutes treating for a trick
These seniors take hold of what they can
and fight for what they can't because
This is home
Where video cassettes are glued to the ceilings and the walls to keep the mice out
This is home
Where the people make their own
Ain't family but they'll never be alone
Ain't nowhere else to go
and these old folks need a place
so they make space
and pray for tomorrow
'cause tomorrow shows a new face.

Donte Clark:
Tomorrow, as dawn peeks
and blue jays sing praise
I will awake,
with a gracious morning
resting lightly on my eyelids,
Thankful,
I can roll out of my plush covers feeling silk
Feet seep deep into warmed carpets in my apartment
On winter mornings around Decembers
Unthaw the frosted grip I have on misery
And set me free
Believing without seeing has brought life to this carcass
Tomorrow,
I will be treated more like resident
Feel more relevant than just a pawn
You feel me?
I bet not - see no dirt but green in these lawns, huh!?!
Don't want to smell no cocaine linger
or mildew clingin to my doorsteps, huh!?!
Gotta protest, raid the government,
shake their pockets
and make them fix these pro-jects, huh!?!
'cause if not here then where?
Where do we go next?
'cause left is cemetery,
Barbed wired hearts
Unchained metal gates like a welcome place for the tear apart
Open doors For the match & spark where
Everything dies slowly,
on schedule.
But until tomorrow
Before my thoughts will manifest kingdom
And we feast in abundance of wealth
We'll break bread,
share what left over scraps we have
and find communion in our struggle.

This is tomorrow.

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Poetry exposes truth about public housing in the Bay Area

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For Deandre Evans, Will Hartfield and Donte Clark writing poetry isn't solely about expressing themselves, it's also about reporting on a story that's affecting their community. Through the Off/Page Project, a collaboration between Youth Speaks and The Center for Investigative Reporting, the three poets joined CIR's Amy Harris in the field while she was conducting research on the housing crisis in Richmond, Calif.

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First one will tug at your emotions, but it's long...Sorry.

It's worth it. Just click below:

https://sites.google.com/site/videobrains1/pbis1

Here's the other one:

https://sites.google.com/site/videobrains1/pbis2

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Veterans' Day Project from Minarets:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3iVy9OYoNs

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K-5 do Mitzvah (good deeds) projects,Tzedakah (raise money for organizations) projects and my class is working with a school in Israel in Gaza to celebrate holidays via Skype and provide them with letters and games to do in the bomb shelters.

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My friend started this organization to do good deeds on September 11th. www.911day.org

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In a drive to organize the single largest day of charitable service in U.S. history in observance of the 10-year anniversary of 9/11, MyGoodDeed and the HandsOn Network are organizing a nationwide campaign with major organizations and celebrities to get pledges to serve. Visit 911day.org for more information.

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Poet Adrienne Rich on the role of Art and balancing Passion w/Compassion.

An elevated soul to be sure!

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We listen back to our 2005 interview with celebrated poet, essayist and feminist Adrienne Rich. Rich died this past March.

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These projects are all up and down CA and surrounding states.

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City Wide Volunteer Days | United States | Love Our Cities

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City Wide Volunteer Days | United States | Love Our Cities

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Love Our Cities provides coaching and technology to help leaders run city-wide volunteer days.

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This is a school that my own son attended - Hope Technology School. It's not where I work, but I love the community involvement! These programs promote inclusion.

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Fueling Young People to Change the World | DoSomething.org

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FEEL FREE TO SHARE WHAT TYPES OF COMPASSION BASED PROJECTS YOU DO IN YOUR SCHOOLS IN THIS WALL. THANK YOU FOR SHARING! @CAEDCHAT

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FEEL FREE TO SHARE WHAT TYPES OF COMPASSION BASED PROJECTS YOU DO IN YOUR SCHOOLS IN THIS WALL. THANK YOU FOR SHARING! @CAEDCHAT

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@rickeducation Creator ofhttp://www.edtune.com/. Center for Investigative Reporting works with Youth Speaks to empower students locally. Ultimately, compassion involves some type of action in the service of truth.

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Founded in 1996 in San Francisco, Youth Speaks has long championed a local, national, and increasingly global movement of young people picking up pens and stepping proudly onto stages, declaring themselves present. We believe that literacy is a need, not a want.