With a track record of over 20+ years, the Project Help club here at Parkway Central is still alive and well. Project Help is the student-led service group where students learn to give their time in service while also developing valuable leadership skills. 

Their mission was revised in 2010 and has remained the same goal since then: “support humanitarian causes through volunteer service.  We strive to provide support and outreach to the disadvantaged and needy in the local, national, and international communities”

In order to accomplish this goal, the club meets every Wednesday from 2:35-3:35pm in room 403. Their service projects vary each week, but include writing cards to veterans, making blankets for hospice patients, cleaning up the courtyard, painting banners for upcoming school events, sorting donated items, etc. 

In addition to their weekly volunteer services, there are also more centralized focuses of events and projects too.

“In February we really focused on mental health awareness,” senior and club president Vivian Lacson said. “We had a self care session that we were working on during Aclab on Friday Feb. 21 where everyone was welcome to come in and make stress balls or do yoga or pet some therapy dogs so that was a big focus of ours.”

But as this month comes to an end, new projects are beginning. 

“In April we have hats on day for Friends of Kids with Cancer,” Lacson said.  “We’re also in charge of Spring Clean so that’s a really big event along with everything else we are still working on.”

Hats on Day is an annual celebration on Wednesday April 1 that was founded in 1995 by four sixth-graders at Henry School in St. Louis to honor and support a classmate named Kevin Beffa who was battling cancer. After Beffa passed away, Friends of Kids with Cancer carried on the event in Beffa’s memory. Now, it is a day celebrated at many other schools where students pay donations for Friends of Kids with Cancer in order to wear a hat to school. 

Spring Clean is an event on Saturday. April 25 from 8:00am- 11:30am where all clubs and societies are invited to help contribute to cleaning up the school by mulching, picking up trash, planting flowers, etc. Each group is assigned an area to work and the students volunteering can also get hours for certain clubs.

Project Help has a variety of different tasks for students to be involved in at all times. Meetings are held every week and there are local volunteering opportunities  that are typically offered once a month.Both of these are things that students can get involved in and that the student-made Exec Board are excited to continue moving forward.