HUMBLE ISD

By Joshua Koch
Public Communications

Summerwood Elementary Kindergarten teacher Ashley Shirey’s love of sports has now expanded from inside to outside the classroom with the new Sports Leadership Club.

The club is made up of fourth and fifth grade students who meet every Wednesday. They start each meeting with a sport or physical activity focused on teamwork and leadership, and end by working together on a student-led service project.

For the month of September, the 42-member club is focusing on football – starting each meeting with football-related activities focused on teamwork and leadership – which coincided perfectly with the kickoff of high school, college and professional football.

It also aligned perfectly with Humble ISD’s involvement in the Gold, Fight, Win campaign. The students chose to host a lemonade stand on Wednesday, September 16, to raise money for Gold, Fight, Win as their student-led service project.

They raised $657.40, which will go directly to the Gold, Fight, Win campaign.

“The kids have worked incredibly hard over the past few weeks planning and preparing for the lemonade stand,” Shirey said. “I really wanted this to be their project and give them the opportunity to take ownership of it rather than simply showing up for a fundraiser.”

For her Sports Leadership Club, Shirey believes that the game of football taught them to work as a team, planning the lemonade stand gave them an opportunity to lead and operating the stand gave them a way to use that leadership to help their community.

The club will continue to meet throughout the school year and have multiple service projects.

“We plan to also do beautification activities around campus, a weekend field trip to the Houston Food Bank, encouraging notes to teachers and classmates, and an activity with the book, A Kids Book About Purpose,” Shirey said. “The kids will also create one big project for us to work on as a group based on the question of what they see they can help solve in the community.”

The club will also hold an Inclusion Day with their final meeting of each month. During this meeting, students in the SPEAK program at Summerwood Elementary will join them. Sports Leadership Club members will take the lead in teaching, playing, and participating with them in activities related to the sport of the month.

“This will give our club members another opportunity to practice leadership while creating an inclusive environment for all students,” Shirey said.

Guest speakers will also be involved in the meetings, including people who work in sports and within the community who can talk with the students about leadership, their careers, and giving back.

“I am incredibly proud of how hard these kids have already worked and how excited they are to help others,” Shirey said. “It has been really special watching the ideas behind Sports Leadership Club start to come to life!”