To achieve a culture of caring, the Foundation has developed three key social action tools, namely: A GRACE LUNCHEOB to foster caring in the community through its leaders; CARING NEIGHBOR ROUNDTABLE to draw neighbors together; and PROJECT CARING NEIGHBOR for schools to educate the next generation about the caring upon which our prosperity rests. These three strategies when generally implemented will elevate a level of a culture of caring that will transform planet earth.
PROJECT CARING NEIGHBOR (PCN) IS AIMED AT INTRODUCING IN SCHOOLS A LEARNING EXPERIENCE OF BEING A CARING NEIGHBOR TO HELP STUDENTS NOT JUST LEARN HOW TO MAKE A LIVELIHOOD BUT ALSO HOW TO MAKE A LIFE.
LOOK TO THIS DAY FOR IT IS LIFE
CELEBRATING THE CARE OF A NEIGHBOR
What is Project Caring Neighbor?
Project Caring Neighbor (PCN) is a school based exercise that involves issuing a grant of $100 to a school from the Caring Neighbor Foundation (CNF). The goal is to raise the awareness of the meaning of neighbor and caring as the basic foundation of all community life. No two individuals are alike in all aspects. Learning to value a neighbor, as neighbor, not only fosters a respect for the uniqueness and worth of fellow students and teachers but helps a student to discover one’s own special role and gifts in building community life. Learning to cooperate and interact simply on the basis of neighbor, without precondition or prejudgment, will, in time, extend beyond the school to the community and throughout the life of the student.
Students gain neighbor consciousness through learning to care as a neighbor in practical ways. The $100 is a seed grant from other caring neighbors in the Foundation inviting students to use it by adding their own creative energies and collaboration in reaching out to neighbors in the school or wider community wherever special caring is needed. The hope is that such a caring neighbor initiative will attract other resources, such as additional funds to support a caring project, time, energy and talent, beyond the PCN participants, and thus foster caring throughout the school and in the wider community.
What is the rationale for PCN?
- Each new generation brings a refreshing idealism needed for a vibrant community. The PCN attempts to reinforce youthful ideals by a hands-on experience of caring and cooperating through developing a concrete goal and plan of action to meet specific needs utilizing the seed grant of $100.
- Participation in PCN expands a student’s view of education as not just a pathway to career and livelihood but also as a pathway to a profound sense of caring needed for life and happiness.
- The project deepens a student’s understanding of leadership as not just a following the leader, but one of creating a new world based upon the unique and special call every neighbor has for the good of others.
- PNC is an exercise of linking mind, heart and hands so that a student learns how social change occurs in and through the cooperative effort required to meet a specific need in a community.
- Engaging the student in caring along with learning nurtures the emotional growth of the student resulting in a desire for learning that leads to creating the new, thus reducing bullying and the school drop-out rate – nearing 50% in some areas.
What Steps To Obtain a PCN Grant?
Obtain approval and backing of the school administration;
- Identify an adult (school staff person, parent, or other interested party) to serve as a resource connecting the PCN to the school administration, the school in general and the wider community;
- Publicize in the school and invite volunteers to participate (open to all ages and both genders) but limit the group size to 10-12 to insure a neighbor-to-neighbor interaction (if more volunteer, split the grant among as many groups that form);
- Establish at a minimum a bimonthly student neighbor-to-neighbor gathering schedule;
- Use the majority vote as the basis of preparing a grant application to the CNF (with the adult providing ideas and encouragement); and submit the grant proposal to the CNF for approval.
- Upon approval of the grant, begin the plan of action as defined by the students in the proposal with a view of growing the seed grant to nurture caring among the PCN participants and beyond in the wider community.
- Keep the minutes of each meeting with a view of preparing a project report for publicity in the local newspaper during or at the end of PCN.
- At the conclusion of the PCN venture, write a joint paper how the exercise has affected each participant and on the impact it has had on the wider community.
- Send a copy of both the report and the personal evaluation of the project to the CNF to be used to promote similar efforts in other schools and beyond.
- Include in the final report the receipts for expenses (up to $100) and the name/address of the person to be reimbursed by the CNF.
DOWNLOAD GRANT APPLICATION TO START PROJECT CARING NEIGHBOR (PCN) Click Here
Dirty Pool – An Educational Video On Caring.