Why the Pink Ladies chose this project:
We like to volunteer in new places and meet new people. It’s fun and it looks good on resumes and college applications.

What problem did the Pink Ladies address?
We saw that there was a lot of trash in and around our school so we decided the entire school volunteer with us to pick up trash.  We wanted to be an example to our friends at school by volunteering. Our friends at school volunteered because they heard how much fun we had volunteering at different places and meeting new people.

How is this need aligned with your impact area?
This project helped people get involved in their community.  The entire student body at our school volunteered for the trash clean up.
What research did you do to find out what has come before Pink Ladies? We created an online survey on our website. Then we went to each classroom on campus and had all of the students fill out the survey about volunteering.  We found out that many students had never volunteered before our school wide community trash clean up.

How we identified the problem of volunteering:  
We noticed that there was a lot of trash on campus and around the school.  So we decided to have an entire trash pick up. We got the entire school involved.
The evidence we used to identify the issue of volunteering:  We used the survey results to identify the issue of lack of volunteering in our school.

Process: How we did our work throughout the year:
We met every week on Wednesday and discuss our goals and accomplishments. We worked on posters for the school wide clean up. We worked on the website. We gathered information on places to volunteer and we went on field trips to places to volunteer like One Generation and the Girls Leadership Summit. We often had food at our meetings. We planned a poster and booth for the “I Heart the Arts” community outreach event at Cleveland High School to showcase the work we were doing through Pink Ladies with Purpose.  We held a raffle for bags that stated “I <3 Volunteering” and asked people in the community why they like volunteering. Many adults and students stated they “liked helping others”, they “had fun” and they “enjoyed meeting new people.” We included the project planner for this event although we did several other activities.

What the Pink Ladies with Purpose have done:
-We have coordinated a school wide trash and community clean up.
-We have created a website with community resources.
-We have created a relationship with One Generation administration and had several guest speakers coordinated through One Generation speak to students at our school about topics ranging from vaping, marijuana and relationships.
-We have taken the entire female student body from our school to the Girls Build Leadership Summit at the Los Angeles Convention Center.
-We have had field trips to One Generation and the Child Development Early Learning Center in Canoga Park.
-We have researched and communicated with over ______ community organizations for people in the community to be able to volunteer.
-We have helped give farm tours of the Kindred Spirits Rescue Farm to local elementary students.
-We have planned to fundraise for the Kindred Spirits Rescue Farm on May 6, 2018 at Veg Fest in Woodley Park.
-We have coordinated with One Generation to volunteer at their Farmers’ Market.
-We designed and created our own tie dyed, personalized t-shirts.
-We designed and created recyclable canvas bags to promote volunteerism in the community.

OUTCOMES
How the Pink Ladies have affected change in our community:
We had 100% of students at John R. Wooden HIgh School participate in the school and community clean up.  We had over 30 schools and 1,500 parents, students and community members attend the “I Heart the Arts” festival where we presented our website, community volunteer resources and surveyed the community about reasons why they love to volunteer.  We collected over 50 post-it responses from people ranging from 6 years old to 72 years respond to our question about why they love to volunteer. We had over 40 people take pictures with our selfie-frame to post on their social media accounts. We also collaborated with the Off the Wall Grafitti art students who shared a booth with us at the festival.  

Long Term Impact of Pink Ladies with Purpose in the community:
Our hope is that this project will encourage many people to be involved in their community and to volunteer and help out one another.  We will continue to collaborate with other students and community members to add more places to volunteer in our community. We will continue to volunteer in our community so that others are inspired to do the same.  We want to make our community better and encourage civic engagement by everyone.

REFLECTION:
Kasy: I find it was good to be in Pink Ladies because you get to meet new people and have a conversation with people who are interested in the same things and being able to help one another out.  I think I’ve made an impact on other people by having them come and join Pink Ladies with Purpose or having them volunteer in the community. I’ve seen more people volunteer at animals shelters, feeding the homeless, donating presents to needy children during the holidays, and fostering animals.
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Alex: Working with Girls Build L.A. has been an amazing opportunity. It has taught me more about the unity we can have with fellow females. This program has helped me with my leadership skills. At times, I felt overwhelmed because of the work done on our website. It took time to really grasp the skill of web design. I love working with people and helping as much as I can. I have learned that volunteering can make an impact on our community. Before, I believed volunteering was just a way to help and pass time. I didn’t think it was as serious as it is. Volunteering helps lives. It helps yourself also. We have a great team here at John R. Wooden. Although it was hard collaborating and compromising at times, we learned through that. We learned that people won’t always agree with your ideas, but working as a team is important. Compromise is important. We had times where we had to have additional meetings after school to talk about our disagreements. Having those meetings helped unite our team more and understand each other for how we were all individually feeling. Overall, I had a great time working with Ms. Young, Ms. Luevanos, and the Pink Ladies. I’m excited for the future volunteer opportunities to come.

Maria: Girls Build L.A. has helped me break out of my shell and try new things. I got to really become involved with my community.

Alexandra: I have learned to communicate more with others and create resources while being a part of GBLA.

Steph: GBLA has taught me how to work as a team. I learned how to stay on task and trust my team members with the work that was on hand, but at the same time, had fun. We had many great experiences and awesome adventures.

Desari: I believe Girls Build L.A. really helped me be more confident in working with other females. There were some challenges along the way because we didn’t always see eye to eye. It really helped me with my communication skills and bettered my understanding in technology. Girls Build L.A. is a great program and I believe it should continue. I will definitely recommend this to other girls.