SOUTHWICK – Ryder Pieczarka, an eighth grader at Southwick Regional School, has found great success thus far as an ambassador for Project 351.
Project 351, first launched by former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick in 2011, is a non-profit youth-driven Massachusetts organization that allows eighth graders to make a difference in their community. Every school district in the state is required to have an eighth-grade student be selected for Project 351 to represent their community.
In order for a school to select an ambassador for Project 351, the guidance counselor speaks with all the teachers of the grade and has them put in recommendations. The guidance counselor then takes the top nominees to the administration for a discussion on which student would best represent them for Project 351.
Southwick Regional School eighth grader Ryder Pieczarka had tremendous success with his clothing drive. (Photo by Greg Fitzpatrick)
On January 19, Pieczarka attended the Project 351 kickoff event in Boston where he took part in different community service projects with his fellow ambassadors.
During the kickoff event, or “Launch Day,” Pieczarka was told he would be able to complete three service projects, all of them benefiting Cradles to Crayons, which helps children up to 12-years-old that are homeless or live in low-income situations, possess the necessary items they need on a daily basis at home, school, or playing. Cradles to Crayons supplies these items for free by connecting with towns and cities that have children that may need these services.
In March, Pieczarka held a clothing drive for his first service project. The clothing drive consisted of having a total of five drop-off boxes at all three schools in the district. All of the clothes donated by students, faculty, and staff are going back to Cradles to Crayons, which will benefit children in Massachusetts who are in need of clothes.
Believing he would only receive 100 or 200 pounds of clothes, Pieczarka was amazed to hear that 622 pounds of donations were collected.
“I was surprised by how much we got,” said Pieczarka. “It was pretty incredible.”
Rachel Deery, is the seventh and eighth grade guidance counselor at the Southwick Regional School and oversees Project 351 at the school, received a call from one of the schools in the district that their donation bin was already full after the first day.
“I couldn’t have guessed over 600 pounds of items, that’s overwhelming,” said Deery. “I’m very, very proud of Ryder, he did an amazing job, he went above and beyond my expectations.”
During the clothing drive in March, Pieczarka and Deery went to both Woodland School and Powder Mill School and went into each classroom where Pieczarka talked to the students about the clothing drive he was organizing.
“If I didn’t do that, we wouldn’t have had as much clothes as we did,” said Pieczarka.
Deery was glad that Pieczarka was able to talk to the younger kids about the importance of his project.
“I was really impressed with Ryder because it’s one thing to talk about it to your peers or to an adult, but to try to communicate to a kindergartner and have them understand the concept, I thought he did a really nice job,” said Deery.
According to Pieczarka, he plans to do the next service project with Cradles to Crayons in the fall.
