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| In honor of a past president of Junior Auxiliary, Ann Wesson, scholarships are awarded every year to selected high school seniors in our community. This scholarship project serves about four students per year and costs Junior Auxiliary $8,000. |
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| This project is a project aimed at keeping the arts in school. JA members provide education and exploration of the arts to students attending local after-school programs. While inspiring the children to participate in the arts, JA hopes to challenge their motor skills, enhance their thinking processes, discover new social interaction and indulge in creative play. This project serves 400 to 500 students per year and costs JA $1,500 for the year. |
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| Buckets of Happiness supplies disadvantaged pediatric patients with personal hygiene and fun/educational items to assist them during their hospital stay. JA members prepare the buckets filled with the personal hygiene products, books, crayons, small toys, clothing and good snacks
This project has been combined with another project called “Special Deliveries.” Junior Auxiliary members work with the “Welcome Baby” program through the Center for the Prevention of Child Abuse. These young mothers are provided with baby items they will need for the baby when they leave the hospital. They also receive a car seat to bring the baby home in if they do not have one. This is a very worthwhile project and has only been at Biloxi Regional Hospital in the past, but the Junior Auxiliary plans to bring the program to Ocean Springs Hospital this year. The budget for this project is $2,500. |
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| Challenge Day is a non-profit organization committed to creating a world where every child feels safe, loved and celebrated. Award winning day long experiential workshops and fellowship programs are designed to show what’s possible by tearing down the walls of separation, inspiring participants to create an environment of compassion, acceptance and respect. The program increases self-esteem, helps shift dangerous peer pressure to positive peer support and reduces the acceptability of teasing, oppression and all forms of violence. The goal of the program is to eliminate social oppression at is roots by replacing ignorance and fear with knowledge, compassion and love. The youth and communities are inspired to make changes they wish to see in the world, and challenge others to do the same. This project costs Junior Auxiliary about $5,900 for every school we bring it to and serves 80 to 100 middle schools to high school aged teens. |
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| The Biloxi/Ocean Springs Chapter this year, served as a Gold Sponsor for the First Annual E-Fitness E-Lympics Program. This program allows children the opportunity to exercise while participating in a variety of competitions and games. JA assists the staff at E-Fitness in helping to safely escort children of various age groups to and from each event and assists with the closing ceremonies. |
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| This project is the Biloxi/Ocean Springs Chapter’s Child Welfare Project, where a family is adopted and the chapter works with them to help break the cycle of dependency. JA members form an ongoing relationship with the family members and provide them with the basic necessities of life. This project in the past has served only one family in the past, but we would like to serve two this year. The estimated budget this year is $5,000. |
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| Jr. Leadership is served jointly by the Junior Auxiliary and the Biloxi Chamber of Commerce. The purpose of the program is to produce students of outstanding character who are more sensitive to the needs of the community and are better able to contribute to society. JA members present a program to expose these students to outstanding people with successful careers in the community. They complete a day long program filled with exercises and activities that get their minds working on how they can build a bigger, healthier community together as future leaders of the Gulf Coast.
This project serves about 30 middle school aged children and has a budget of $500 per year. |
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| JA Life Members host monthly birthday parties for senior citizens. Participants enjoy bingo and birthday cake. In addition to the birthday parties, luncheons are held twice a year and Christmas baskets are a treat in December. |
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| This program introduces students to the USDA Food Pyramid Guidance System in a fun way! The lesson also discusses exercise and how the correct foods we eat give us the energy our bodies need to exercise and play.
A group of two to three JA members prepare a lesson and set up a large colorful poster in the front of the classroom. The students are then given a booklet to follow along with the lesson. One member dresses up in a colorful Pyramid Pal costume and reads the dialogue to the students along with another member or the teacher. The students participate by using the Food Pyramid worksheet to fill out with the lesson information. After the lesson, the students are encouraged to take home their lesson packet with eating tips for families. The classroom can also play an online interactive computer game called My Pyramid Blast off. |
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| This is a fairly new project to Junior Auxiliary, where members work in partnership with Habitat for Humanity, where a family is selected by Habitat for a complete bedroom makeover for every child in the household.
JA members go into the family’s home and decorate the children’s rooms according to the preference and interests of those particular children.
While JA members are working in the house, other members of the committee take the family on an all day adventure, treating them to lunch and to a fun-filled day of activities, bringing them home for the big surprise when the makeover is complete.
Usually four to six families are served each year and a budget of $15,000 is available for this project. |
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| A committee is formed, which organizes the gift of giving during the holiday season. Each JA member is assigned a family from their area school, which they are responsible for all year. The members purchase presents for every child in the family, selected by the school counselor and teachers for the holiday.
Members of this committee also collect gifts for various events and programs during the holidays for other families in need in our local communities. Santa’s Helpers also wraps gifts for an entire weekend at Minor’s Toy Store in downtown Ocean Springs for a local festival held during the Christmas Holidays every year. This project serves about 500 children and has a budget of $20,000 for the year. |
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| Members of the Junior Auxiliary chapter have been on call to area schools for 40 years providing clothing, school supplies, medical, dental and financial assistance for children K-12 in partnership with the school counselors. Once a student in need is identified by the teacher or school nurse, the JA representative is called. These needs can be clothing, assistance in paying rent, emergency dental care, ADHD medication, or utility assistance. In 2008, we spent over $18,000 on our Biloxi and Ocean Springs School Aid project. This is by far our largest on-going project. |
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| This project involves a puppet show, which is presented to area elementary schools by JA members. The members of this committee put on a puppet show for first graders in which the characters in the show are children their age who are faced with some very difficult and sad situations. The skits in the puppet show focus on physical and sexual abuse, neglect and stranger danger. After the show, JA members discuss all of the situations with the group of students, stressing to the students how important it is to talk to a trusted adult about these bad situations if they are ever faced with something like that in their own lives. This is a very worthwhile project in which the teachers and school counselor are also present. This project serves between 300 and 500 children per year and costs the Junior Auxiliary $2,000 each year. |
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| This project works with the Welcome Baby program through the Center for the Prevention of Child Abuse. The purpose of this program is to help teen mothers with basic needs relating to parenting. |
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| This project elects a board of teachers from our community to further enable JA by communicating the needs of our children and assisting in project development and implementation. |
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This is a new project at the Gulf Coast Women’s Center for Non-Violence in which the members of Junior Auxiliary provide positive interaction with the children residing at the shelter during a very confusing time of transition in their lives. It is estimated that it will take approximately $4,000 to run this project per year and the number of children it will serve is not known at this time.
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