EarlyAct Club at Stony Brook School

Stony Brook School students and faculty welcomed representatives of the Rotary Club of the Plainfields and Mayor Michael Giordano to a special assembly in 2016 to usher in a new EarlyAct Club.

• EarlyAct Clubs are youth service clubs for elementary school children and operate under the auspices of a local Rotary club.
• Sponsored by the Plainfield-North Plainfield Rotary, EarlyAct is a school-wide service club for elementary students ages 5 to 13.
• “We thought it would be a great idea to start students early and get them involved in a service learning group like Rotary,” advisor Kathleen Landadio, an academic support teacher at Stony Brook School, told TAPinto North Plainfield. “Rotary has always been very supportive of North Plainfield School and this seemed like a great fit.”
• The mission and operation of EarlyAct are closely linked to the ideas of Rotary. Students engaged in character-building activities and are prepared for leadership roles to identify and carry out projects that benefit their school local and global communities.
• “EarlyAct Club is a Rotary sub-club that helps kids begin to understand the important of community service,” said Ravenell Williams IV, president of the Rotary club said during the assembly. “The mission of Rotary is ‘Service Above Self’ and we have Interact at the middle and high school and EarlyAct at the elementary school. They both have the same purpose and that is to fulfill Rotary’s mission.”
• The Stony Brook EarlyAct Club will focus on three initiatives:
• a school-based initiative through which they will create Koala Care Packages that will be given out to new students;
• a community-based initiative through which they will participate in Rotary’s Pennies for Polio program;
• a world-initiative through which the goal is to have Stony Brook students pair up through Skype with an EarlyAct Club located in another country..

During the assembly, which was attended by third and fourth grade students and their teachers, Williams and fellow Rotarians Mary Forbes and Maliek Flynn presented Stony Brook with a charter, banner and banks for the students to donate to Rotary’s polio eradication project.

The charter, which Kobylarz plans to display in the school, was signed by Williams and Secretary/Treasurer Michael Townley. It ‘recognizes the commitment to the Rotary ideal of Service Above Self and names Stony Brook as an official chartered Youth Service Club of District 7510.’

North Plainfield Mayor Michael Giordano also presented Kobylarz with a proclamation declaring Jan. 7, 2016 as ‘EarlyAct Club of Stony Brook School Day.’ “The youth of our community is our greatest asset, deserving our support and admiration for their service to others, including their efforts to improve the lives of those in need,” said Giordano.