Sparrow Clubs USA

A few months ago the Citizenship Washington Focus girls began work on their Action Plan. An Action Plan asks the delegates to identify a problem in their community and the find or create a solution to the problem. My girls opted to help children in medical need through the Sparrow Clubs USA organization. Prior to them mentioning this organization, I had never heard of it and knew nothing about it. 

In talking a bit more and doing some research online we discovered Sparrow is a regional non-profit organization. I emailed the headquarters in Bend, Oregon and within a day received a call from someone who happened to be in Bend for a board meeting, but operates out of an office in Ellensburg. Perfect for us of course!

The way that Sparrow works is a bit complicated to explain, but I'll try my best. 
1) A business or organization is asked and then identified as a sponsor, fronting funds for a family with a child in medical needs. These needs may be money for gas or lodging for doctor/hospital stays, food in the home, or to build a ramp for easier access to the home among many other purposes. 2) Once funds are identified, youth to 'buy back' the funds through community service are identified. Traditionally these youth have been at a school the child in need attends or is close by. For the first time (at least to my knowledge but I need to check), Sparrow is working with a youth organization, in this case 4-H. Kids perform their community service and then are asked to fill out a voucher in order for their hours to count. On the voucher they record their community service hours, as well as write a reflection on what doing the hours means to them. Each hour of service is worth about $10, so if someone performs ten hours of service and turns it in, then they've earned their Sparrow about $100. Easy for our 4-Hers!

The girls began gung-ho for this project and wanted to adopt four Sparrows, but have since realized how much time this is going to take, as well as how many other life commitments they have. So, moving forward Washington State 4-H is going to adopt two Sparrows: one on the west side of the state, a second on the east side. We are kicking all of this off this fall at the four Teen Rallies, the first being at the end of September. By that time the goal is to have a video telling the stories of both Sparrows, one of which we met last week!

Our first Sparrow lives just outside of Leavenworth. Kelvin is 12 and just starting middle school this next year. He has muscular dystrophy, which is why Sparrow was asked to help. His parents work in the orchard industry, and his three older sisters have all graduated and are now in college as of this year. It was great being able to sit down with his family and see how close they are. The youngest sister has been taking care of Kelvin all summer and left this weekend to go to WSU. 

Kelvin is a cute little boy. He isn't too sure about moving up to the middle school just yet, and isn't excited for school to start. His favorite subject we discovered though, is earth sciences. Kelvin really likes soccer, watching it on tv, and playing some video games. The girls are hoping to be able to take him to a Sounders game in the coming year. He named a favorite player/team, but since I don't have a clue as far as that all goes I'm not even going to try and go there. 

I think I am almost more excited about this than the girls, but I'm glad we've been able to truly get things underway as we've been planning for months!

Kelvin sitting with his mom and sisters. We couldn't get a smile out of him in front of the camera, even with Amber and her crazy antics behind Tyra!