On Wednesday, November 20, Big Shoulders Fund Northwest Indiana hosted its fourth annual Lend a Shoulder Day event at St. John the Baptist Catholic School in Whiting. Over 100 community members along with Big Shoulders executives, board members, and volunteers visited several local Big Shoulders Fund network schools to interact with students, teachers, and principals. This year, the groups visited St. John the Baptist Catholic School (SJB) in Whiting, Saint Mary’s Catholic Community School in Crown Point, as well as Michigan City’s Saint Stanislaus Kostka School and Marquette Catholic High School.
Dan Kozlowski, executive director of Big Shoulders Fund Northwest Indiana, believes that the Lend a Shoulder Day event benefits the community as a whole in a number of ways.
“This is an important event because it gives us the opportunity to share the great work that our schools do every day,” Kozlowski said. “Community members get to come out and see firsthand how Big Shoulders Fund partners with local schools. Many of the people participating in Lend a Shoulder Day today support our organization in some way, shape, or form, so I really hope that they leave with a sense of pride for the awesome work that they do with our organization. Some of them are new to our mission, so I hope that they leave with a good understanding of the ways we support our schools and how these schools are truly pillars of their communities.”
At SJB, student ambassadors led the attendees around the school, sharing information about programs and events that St. John the Baptist offers. The attendees visited Kristie Frey’s kindergarten class to carve up pumpkins and let the youngsters take a look inside. Each delighted student helped dig out and separate the seeds before patting them dry. The seeds were then seasoned and baked in the school kitchen to make a tasty seasonal treat.
Karen Kennedy, chairman of the Big Shoulders Fund Northwest Indiana Founders Advisory Council, and her husband have been involved with Big Shoulders Fund for the past 14 years. She enjoys attending Lend a Shoulder Day each year.
“I always get excited when I visit a Big Shoulders Fund school,” Kennedy said. “My husband and I understand the importance of its work. It has helped its network schools accomplish unbelievable things and has had an extremely positive impact on students in the area. Big Shoulders Fund is an organization that exceeds your expectations. It has an endowment that covers all administrative costs, so 100% of your donation goes to the schools. It’s an amazing organization that puts the kids first. I hope everyone here today feels encouraged to volunteer and help the cause. Once they interact with the students today, they’ll see that our future is bright.”
In Karly Tabernacki’s third grade class at SJB, attendees got to help students engineer “traps” for paper turkey cutouts. The students and attendees worked together to make the sturdiest – and most secure – traps possible out of mini marshmallows and toothpicks.
Joshua Hale, president and CEO of Big Shoulders Fund, considers Lend a Shoulder Day to be one of the organization’s quintessential events.
“Lend a Shoulder Day is all about relationship building,” Hale said. “It’s about building relationships with students and the educators who are preparing them to join the workforce and lead the community. It also lets us bring people in to see the heart of our mission and lets students and principals engage with those who believe in investing in their future. Whether it's in the best of times or the worst times, children always have an innocence and a hope that’s contagious. As we get older, we can lose some of that optimism, but kids see everything as a possibility and they remind us of that. That’s why I find opportunities to interact with kids like Lend a Shoulder Day so inspiring.”
Attendees joined teacher Maureen Progar and the SJB sixth grade class in the library to create a collaborative poem. Each attendee and student took turns adding a new line to the poem while only able to see the previous line. The final result of this fun activity was a creative and colorful poem that blended the ideas of the collaborators.
Bert Miller has been affiliated with Big Shoulders Fund for over 23 years. He looks forward to seeing others become invested in Big Shoulders’ work, just as he has.
“I am completely bought into the mission,” Miller said. “One can’t help but buy into it, especially when you can attend Lend a Shoulder Day, meet the staff and students at the schools, and kick the tires, so to speak. Whenever you increase the circle of people who understand what your message and your mission are, that's a big deal. The people here today will go back to their spouses and their friends and talk about this event. That’s how the word gets around. There’s an old saying that goes: ‘Find somebody to do something right.’ If Big Shoulders Fund doesn’t embody that expression, then I don’t know what organization does.”
Before the attendees left, the SJB pre-4 class performed a touching rendition of the song “Guardian Angel” for them. This song holds special significance in the SJB community, as every student learns this song when in preschool. At the song’s conclusion, the attendees offered the young singers their most enthusiastic applause.