Annual “Bluejay Way Community Service Day” is a Success!

November 15, 2022

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There were 55 high school students that volunteered and assisted in the annual

“Bluejay Way” Community Service Day on Sunday, November 6th, 2022 throughout the

Greater Seward area. The day promoted community service at Seward High School and

coordinated opportunities for the students to add to their community service hours. The

school and community introduced a wide variety of venues to serve as opportunities for

the students to add to their list of community service hours or begin their community

service program.

Each graduate at Seward High is required to complete 30 hours of community service

as a qualification for graduation. This is a day of volunteer time that is sponsored and

coordinated twice a year-and as a result, if a student completes these two days twice a

year, half of their community service requirement is fulfilled.

There were five teachers from SHS assisting with this event. Jordan Hinrichs

coordinated the fairground volunteer opportunities. Lynette Petersen and Sara Smith

were assisting and directing at the Seward County Historical Society Museum in

Goehner with a group of fifteen students. Melissa Pohl assisted at the Olde Glory

Theater and Ashlee Rickert was the coordinator at the Seward Civic Center. Other

community members volunteered and assisted guiding the students throughout the

event in supervisory positions during the day at the various sites, including the Seward

United Methodist Church.

“It was wonderful and rewarding to see these students working “side by side” with

numerous, longtime volunteers at all of the sites,” noted SHS Educator Lynnette

Peterson. “The experience was well organized and the students could see immediately

that their work made an impact on the facility or project that they were assigned. Many

of the students also noted that they planned to return to their worksite and volunteer for

more hours, as the experience generated an interest in the activities that occurred at

that location. In fact, some had never been to the volunteer site before-and that also

proved to be very educational.”

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This event has been coined, "The Bluejay Way" and it was labeled a success for our

students and community. All in all, there were 55 students, five volunteer teachers, and

extra volunteer adult and volunteer supervisors at each location, which amounted to

around 75+ volunteers working at five locations for a two hour period of time - all

generating community service as volunteers!

“For many of these students, it is their first step into community service and being a

volunteer. Our goal is to introduce them to a variety of community service opportunities

in Seward and “wet their appetite to do more,” commented coordinator SHS Educator-

Jordan Hinrichs. “Seward is a great town, known for its many wonderful volunteers and

we must continue to educate and build the next generation of volunteers for Seward,

Nebraska - instilling in these students the desire to “give back” to the community!”

The duties at each of the locations included…..

Olde Glory Theater - Outdoor maintenance of cleaning up around the building.

Fairgrounds – A deep clean of the tables and chairs of the Ag Pavilion, picked up leaves

and trash around the grandstands, picked up trash around the fairgrounds. 

Goehner-Seward County Historical Society Museum - Cleaned up the grounds around

the buildings, cleaned inside the buildings, polished the school house and cleaned and

dusted the exhibits. 

Civic Center – cleaned out basement storage room, sorted and bundled new tourism

brochures/maps, made tourism packets, sorted Christmas decorations and put together

the Christmas trees for the Festival of Trees

Methodist Church – cleaned the outdoor years and gathered the leaves/sticks and yard

debris.

Each of the locations continues to offer community service opportunities for volunteers.

Please contact them to assist with their programs. The event was coordinated by SHS

educator Jordan Hinrichs of Seward. For more information on the program contact

Hinrichs at SHS 402-643-2988 or email him at Jordan.Hinrichs@sewardschools.org.