The Lockwood Student Council is sponsoring a Sparrow Club for the Middle School. A kickoff assembly was held April 21st. It was a wonderful assembly of all middle school students, staff, administration, our sparrow and his family, his physician Dr. Kelker & staff, the regional director of the organization and community donors.

A Sparrow Club is a unique service-learning activity where a local child in medical crisis is paired with a school or group of young people who "adopt" him or her as their "sparrow". Through project sponsorship and the service voucher system, students are inspired to do community service as a way to raise funds to meet the urgent needs of their sparrow and his/her family.

A "Sparrow" is a child, 17 yrs. or under, who is in the midst of a medical crisis. Our wonderful "sparrow" is Alan Loomis who is a 7th. grader here at Lockwood School. Alan is currently being treated for a rare form of Leukemia. He has been under treatment for over a year. His goal is to be able to return to school fulltime next Fall and to be a member of the Sparrow Club and help other kids. Alan has volunteered to talk to his health classes and his sister's classes about his disease and treatment. He is a kind young man who has worked hard to keep up with his academics even though he is not well.

Every student in the middle school was invited to participate in this project. All students were given a sparrow voucher to document community service hours and to write a reflection. It will list community service projects and hours served. It will need to be signed by a parent or advisor. The reflection will show what helping Alan has meant to each student that participates. Each hour of student volunteer time will release $10 to be used by Alan's family to help pay for medical costs, travel costs and day to day expenses.

This project has been funded by individual donations from the community and the sale of sparrows. Lockwood IGA has been selling sparrows for $1 and $5 with great success. All of the funds raised are designed to benefit the sparrow. Thank you to all who have donated to this project.

How can you help? Encourage your middle school student to donate community service hours. Vouchers are available at the office. Buy a sparrow at IGA. Donations can also be made directly to the Sparrow Club via Lockwood School or sparrrowclubs.org The more funds we raise, the more we help Alan and the more community service our kids do.

Sick kids and their families get help. Healthy kids become heroes.
Schools become sanctuaries.