Leadership Southwestern students, Katy Hamilton, Mandy Watson, and Ashley Schmitt, recently teamed up with the Builders Club at Winfield Middle School to host a Middle School Leadership Day on the Southwestern campus. 

A total of 36 middle school students visited campus to learn about servant leadership practices and to design a service project for their school.  While on campus, the students participated in a service project of writing 43 Thanksgiving and Christmas letters to be sent via Operation Shoebox to American troops serving overseas.  
Lindsay Wilke, assistant director for Leadership Southwestern, hopes that the middle school students will take the lessons they learned on campus back into their school to help foster service and leadership at WMS. 

“The Leadership students designed an interactive and engaging day for the middle school students,” Wilke says.  “They worked hard to provide the students with lessons that will help them make positive contributions in their school and in their personal lives.”

Leadership Southwestern student Mandy Watson says that it is the small things that make a big difference.

“It’s an amazing feeling working with younger kids that are so enthused about service learning,” Schmitt says.   “It’s nice to know that you can start early with the kids in teaching them how to build community and what an impact it can make, even if it is something as simple as writing a letter to a soldier.  Sometimes it doesn’t seem like a big deal, but for some it can make a big difference.”

Jalaine Richardson, coordinator of the WMS Builder Club, helped coordinate the event.