A club that started as USC Honors College student Salem Carriker's creative senior thesis project in 2010 now remains on campus, giving students the opportunity to educate local children.
Project Vida is a service organization that introduces young children to public health related topics. The club visits an Ezekiel Ministries after-school program biweekly to present new topics and engage the children in activities related to various topics.
"Being apart of Project Vida really brings you out in the community and puts you in perspective of how little is really given to a lot of these kids, regarding public health practices, personal hygiene, nutrition, and exercise and things like that," said Naomi Schlag, a fourth-year biochemistry student and Project Vida club vice president.
Project Vida has volunteered with Ezekiel Ministries' after-school programs at multiple locations throughout the years. The club used to volunteer at the location in downtown Columbia, but when it shut down for a year, they moved to the White Knoll location.
Project Vida volunteers six times a semester at the K-5 after-school program at Ezekiel Ministries every other Monday. Project Vida volunteers teach the same group of about 20-25 kids every time.
When visiting Ezekiel Ministries, the club presents a lesson on a public health related topic that they try to coordinate to nearby holidays and seasons to keep the lessons engaging and prevalent for the kids. The club recently did a lesson on cold and flu prevention because the weather is cooling down, club president Julia Wood, a fourth-year public health student, said .
"We just have volunteers sitting next to them, helping them, so it's pretty individual, which works out because they connect with the kids," Wood said. "They're able to kind of bond with different students."
Project Vida plans interactive activities to go along with their lessons to help the kids apply what they learned that day. The club also gives the kids something to take home after each of their visits so that they can further engage with what they learned by sharing it with people in their lives, Schlag said.
Fourth-year public health student Arlis Dawsey said that his favorite activity is teaching the kids oral and dental hygiene. He said they put pieces of Play-Doh in between ice tray slots to show the kids how to floss by having them try and get the Play-Doh out.
"Seeing those lessons actually come to fruition and have an impact on those kids ... That's kind of what kept me coming back and staying involved in the club," Dawsey said.
Dylan Adame, the club's advisor and experiential learning coordinator for the Honors College, said Project Vida gets funding directly through the Honors College and their annual budget to get the supplies for these activities and other resources the club needs.
During these meetings, the entire club works together to brainstorm potential ideas for their lessons. After the brainstorming happens, the executive staff puts together the specific slideshows and handouts for the kids to look at and learn from during the lessons, curriculum coordinator and second-year neuroscience student Kathryn Letwink said.
"We are really collaborative at the meetings. We're open to anyone's suggestions on lesson plans, anyone's ideas about activities," Wood said. "We're just super supportive of anyone joining and adding to our lessons."
Quadasia Feagins-Breazell oversees the entire after school program at Ezekiel Ministries and is Project Vida's contact there.
"They (the kids) love Project Vida ... The kids have their own personal connection with them, and they look forward to seeing them on their Mondays," Feagins-Breazell said. "They're like, 'We know Project Vida's coming. We're ready.'"
Dawsey said there are many times where he has been shown how much of a difference Project Vida is making in the lives of the kids they volunteer with, but one specific moment stands out to him the most.
"We were finished for the semester, and two of the kids who were in the after school program, they had written me a handwritten card, just saying how much they appreciated me and how thankful that they were that I would come each week, and I learned their names and spent time and just asked and cared about them," Dawsey said.
Project Vida isn't exclusive to Honors College students. The club currently has about 30 active members that are both Honors and non-honors college students.
"The whole point of honors is not to segregate two different student bodies.... We want everyone to be able to come together, USC as a whole, for the combined mission of pushing out public health aims towards the younger community," Schlag said. "But that's definitely not something just specific for the Honors students here."
Project Vida hopes to be able to expand their volunteering to a second Ezekiel Ministries location in the future to give their volunteers more opportunities to work with the kids at the Ezekiel Ministries after school program, Dawsey said. The club welcomes new members throughout the school year and meets every other Thursday at 6:30 p.m.