Photo Caption: Interact members who volunteered their time at Mount Saint Vincent pose for a picture, commemorating all their ameliorating work. photo courtesy of Danny Showers
Thomas Jefferson High School’s Interact Club helped make a difference in our community by volunteering their time at Mount Saint Vincent Residential Treatment Center.
Career and Technical Education (CTE) Partnership Coordinator Danny Showers lead the Interact Club in this adventure. The Interact Club is a student auxiliary of Rotary International in affiliation with the Denver Tech Center Rotary Club. This global network of humanitarians strives to help others by promoting integrity and goodwill through a fellowship of business, professional, and community leaders. With a motto of, “service above self,” it is easy to see how the members of Interact and Showers would rise to meet the challenge and donate their time to assisting the children at Mount Saint Vincent.
Mount Saint Vincent is a Residential Treatment Center in the Rocky Mountain region that provides mental health counseling, restorative trauma care, and education for Colorado’s youth from preschool to eighth grade. They are a family-centered agency that establishes a safe environment for kids to develop positive relationships to help them reach their full potential when they grow up.
On Saturday, April 27th, the members from Interact volunteered at Mount Saint Vincent, providing a variety of services. They assisted the teachers with the students in school by helping with the daily classroom activities and played with the kids and patients at the treatment center. Later, the Interact club members worked in the kitchen with the staff for meal preparation and cleaned up. “Volunteering at Mount Saint Vincent was a great experience for me,” says next year’s club President Pana Reiva, “it reminded me that even something as small as a smile can have the power to make a difference with what other people are struggling with.” Connecting with the community around TJ is an excellent opportunity for self-growth and discovery. The club members can all agree that volunteering through Interact has provided them with inspiration and motivation for helping others.
Showers’ goal with Interact is to give the students at TJ the opportunity to put their community above self, and continually encourages today’s youth to branch out and become leaders in their society. He commemorates on the event at Mount Saint Vincent and the growth of his students by saying, “I have seen people go from being timid to wanting to rip off their shell and take on the world because they see the results of a day’s work by volunteering with projects like this.”
The providers and patients at Mount Saint Vincent send the students from TJ and the Interact club their gratitude. The positive impact of the TJ volunteers and their contribution makes the treatment center a better place. “Here we are, TJ’s little Interact club,” begins Showers, “but we are so focused on being apart of something bigger than ourselves that we roll up our sleeves and jump in.”
