Need:
How might we give students the chance to give back and make a lasting difference in their own community?
Break through barriers...find common ground was the theme for Break Through 2013. More than 100 students from 14 area high schools participated in the two-day, overnight, immersive, hands-on service project that focused on the Capital High School Quadrant in Boise.
In just two short (slash long. Think arms so tired you can barely lift them kinda work), students accomplished 1,500 + hours of labor on projects including: renovation of a firehouse, converting it to a Community Center; preparing two community gardens for planting; building five park benches; landscaping at Idaho Youth Ranch facilities; building bleachers for the Liberty Park baseball field; painting and restoring buildings at Expo Idaho and the Les Bois race track and refurbishing a gravel walkway, planting trees, and spreading bark at Winstead Park. It was a blizzard of work that resulted in dramatic changes in the quadrant.
Impact
More than 90% of participants reported improvement in leadership, teamwork and collaboration, communication skills and creativity. One hundred percent of the participants reported a greater interest in volunteering and service as a result of their participation in Break Through.
