As the school year comes to an end, Rosemont Middle School’s programs are beginning to close. Even during the pandemic, Rosemont has kept many clubs and organizations available to students. One program that is always open is CJSF, California Junior Scholarship Federation, a program that allows students to help out with community service and appreciate the people around their community.
The members of CJSF are chosen based on their grades. Incoming 7th graders must wait a semester so that teachers can see whether they have a high enough GPA to join the program, as each student must have all A’s or B’s. For 8th graders returning, the supervisors will look at their grades from their last semester in 7th grade. In order to join, all the students must have met up on Zoom in January, where the supervisors provided them with all the information needed. Then, the students were free to work on the tasks before the due date. Each student had to finish three or more assignments to get credit for being part of the program.
This past school year, students have been taking part in the CJSF organization by completing tasks that were available off-campus. Therefore, the supervisors, made up of 7th-grade English teachers, created a service card that students could fill out once they had finished each task. The card included events such as volunteering at the food drive, checking in on a neighbor, creating a poster for teachers, and completing one’s own remote volunteering. However, if the students were on-campus and were able to go places, the tasks would have been a bit different. Each student would sign up to go to different elementary schools to help out with events, write cards for staff on campus, and even write to the crosswalk helper.
One task that was part of the service card was a food drive. The school did not want students to have physical contact with anyone else, so they set up a table where they could bring in one or two cereal boxes. Each student was prompted to take a picture in front of the table after they put their box down. Then, they were able to turn the picture into the Google Classroom for credit.
One 7th grader, Christine Nam explained, “I think CJSF was a memorable club that let me experience more giving than receiving, as well as give me practice for helping people when I passed out homeless bags for the remote volunteering opportunity. Also, even though it had to all be remote, I was still glad that I had the chance to take part in these different activities.” Like Christine, many students enjoyed completing the tasks, and it especially helped the new 7th graders feel a part of the school.
Rosemont Middle School has allowed all its students to participate in many programs and will continue to do this in the future.
