Students in the PLOT (Promise Leaders of Tomorrow) youth group and Making Proud Choices held a clean-up of North Park  organized by members of Team FRESH as part of their volunteer community efforts. Sixth-grade students from Morton Middle School met with other middle school students after school on June 16, 2009, passed out gloves, divided into two teams and headed uphill to the park. Finding trash of all kinds, the teams filled half a dozen garbage bags and returned to the school to see which team had collected the most. Following the event, youth headed to CD-REC on Bank Street to donate canned goods for local soup kitchens and to watch a video together. The project is designed to instill a sense of civic duty, encourage community service and build leadership skills among middle school youth who will be moving into similar roles in high school through Team FRESH and other youth groups. Click here for the Herald News article about the project and its recent award. For information about the PLOT group, contact Massachusetts Promise Fellow Brendan Sullivan at 315-832-0234 or Fall River Youth Coordinator Christian McCloskey at 508-324-2419. (Photos, bottom row, by Brendan Sullivan)
 

.(Top row, left and center) Massachusetts Promise Fellow Brendan Sullivan and Fall River Youth Coordinator Christian McCloskey gather with students behind Morton Middle School and pass out gloves toDesmond Sanders, Shelby Chouinard and the other students. (Top row, right) Desmond Sanders and Jessica Pereira begin picking up trash next to the Morton Middle School school sign in North Park. (Middle row, left) Nicholas Dumont heads up the hill with Making Proud Choices program coordinator Ann Medeiros. (Middle row, right) Saphera Sreng and jessica Wond race up the hill ahead of the rest of Team FRESH. (Bottom row, center and right) Students Zacharia Sonallah, Shela Carreiro and Bellinda Teixeira go the extra mile to get trash out of the wading pond at North Park and then return to the School to display their haul.