Isabella Duque Munoz, Rayssa Braga, And Leticia Madeira wanted people to write kind, encouraging, and motivational letters to their loved ones. People sent the group an email stating who they wanted to send the letter to, who it was being sent by (it could be anonymous), the address, and what they wanted to write. The group revised them and mailed them. They believe that this has brought smiles to peoples’ faces and helped them throughout these hard times. Being at home most of the time and barely socializing can take a toll on us, as we are social creatures. When you send someone an actual letter it gives a way bigger effect than a text or email. The group believes that the impact this has had on our city has been amazing and something worth thinking about.

For Sam Cluggish’s Act of Kindness, he worked with Mr. Skorker, Chenine Peloquin, and the administration of Medford High School to help eligible students at Medford High School register to vote for the November 3rd election. Using some aspects of the program When We All Vote, he provided students with the resources necessary to register themselves to vote using Massachusetts’s online voter registration system. The ability to vote is very important to the community because it allows the average citizen to engage in public discourse and change the community directly. Being able to vote during the election was especially important due to the turning point the election created and the issues being decided. Sam was very happy he was able to help the community in this way and he looks forward to future opportunities to benefit the community.

Naomie Pierre, Baban Gill, Oprah Nkera, and Eleanor Nkera’s project is called Seeds to Feed. The group planted a harvest to donate to the Mystic community market. With these vegetables they wanted to help by planting a variety of different fruits and vegetables, so people have easy access to food. This pandemic left many families to worry about their next meals. Therefore, the group wanted to give them our help, and support during these tough times. This all happened at the garden in MHS, which is run by Mrs. Retta Smith.

August Bengtson worked with Kitty Connection by drawing donors' pets. When someone donates a certain amount of money to a Kitty Connection, they will have their pet drawn by August. This fundraiser will hopefully raise money and awareness for local animal rescue organizations. In addition to this fundraiser, August also used his artistic abilities to try and help homeless shelter dogs get adopted. He found dogs in need of loving homes via Instagram and drew portraits of these dogs. Along with the portraits, he provided the dog’s bio from the shelter and the shelter’s address and contact information. The goal of this was to help share homeless dogs with the hope of them getting adopted.

In order to entertain the community during the pandemic, Aniya Crump had created an Instagram called t_f_n_p_ (which stood for The Friendly Neighbor Project) to stream and post videos that showcased various activities that children could watch and recreate at home. The streams were held on Wednesdays and Saturdays for various amounts of time. She posted small DIY crafts and tips and tricks videos and posts. She streamed DIY activities on wednesdays and more chill streams on Saturdays. The goal of this project was to entertain and connect people from across the community and to enjoy time during quarantine.

Sisters Kate and Abbie Joslin wanted to create a scavenger hunt for citizens of Medford to teach people about their community and what it had to offer. They decided to compile a list of many different objects and places around town that symbolized Medford. In order to maintain social distancing, Kate and Abbie had participants take photos of the things they found and the places they visited. All of these pictures were uploaded to a google doc that everyone had access to. This way everyone involved could see all the different objects people found. This scavenger hunt was a great way to bring the community together. The goal of this scavenger hunt was to create an opportunity for people to go outside and do something fun in their community. In addition to this, the scavenger hunt taught people about Medford and what they could find throughout our very special city.

For Theodora Odvil, Victoria Miller, Sammy Mercauto and Megan Furtado’s CCSR Project, the group wanted to close the gap between the young and elderly once again. The project has a close connection to the group because Theodora works and volunteers with the elderly at a nursing home. Vicki volunteers with children with special needs, and Sammy and Megan volunteer with their younger cousins. The group had children create cards for a holiday and then deliver/mailed the cards to the elderly.

For Matteo D’Aveta and Josh Klein’s CCSR project this year, they decided to hold a book drive for the Medford area. They advertised the book drive using virtual flyers. They set up a collection area where people could leave their unwanted books. After they collected a sufficient amount of books, they sorted through them to pick out all the books in good condition and divided them based on whether they were written for adults or for children. Once they had done this, they gave the books to local services/schools where the books could be put to good use.

For Sam Cluggish’s service project for the community, he started a monthly podcast for the CCSR that chronicled the happenings of the CCSR over the month. He also interviewed members of different CCSR projects and interviewed members of the community who either helped out with said projects or are working on their own to help serve the community. Each podcast had a monthly theme which Sam discussed by sharing his own thoughts on the theme as well as through the interviews. Sam did this podcast mainly by himself, without the direct sponsorship of any organization. However, he does want to thank BandLab and Spreaker for making free-to-use recording programs so he could record and edit the podcasts. Sam hopes that the podcast will continue after he graduates from high school and that it will hopefully grow to include more than just one person running the show.