SHARP Corps

Students Helping and Reaching People

SHARP Corps was launched at Tappan Middle School in Ann Arbor in the fall of 1999, in collaboration with the Ann Arbor YMCA. At that time, it was organized by a YEP Action Team formed at the 1999 Youth Adult Partnership Summit to address recommendations put forth by YEP’s first Leadership Team to create more service learning opportunities for diverse groups of younger students. View Summit & 1999 Recommendations to the Community.

In May 2003, SHARP Corps finished its fourth successful year at Tappan. All Tappan students are invited to come to SHARP Corps. This is a great opportunity to get to know new people while helping others. It is an after school activity where a very diverse group of friends work together to make a contribution to our community. Led by YEP teens and University of Michigan students, middle school students come together once a week to choose and work on community service projects.

Here are examples of some their projects that go on from fall to spring:

• Carving pumpkins at Halloween and making valentines for seniors at Glacier Hills Nursing Home and kids in Mott Children’s Hospital,
  
  
• Sewing and decorating mittens, and distributing them to homeless shelters and to some of the Hunger Coalition meals at local churches for homeless people,
  
  
• Organizing a winter clothing drive for homeless children,
  
  
• Becoming pen pals with patients of Turner Geriatric Clinic who are experiencing memory loss,
  
  
• Binding pencils for the National Kidney Foundation and writing Thank You cards for Red Cross blood donors and businesses who donate food to Food Gatherers to feed people in need,
  
  
• Cooking food for the Homeless Shelter,
  
  
• Collecting 1000 books for reading programs, and more!
  
  
• SHARP Corps students are also participating in the YEP/West Africa Exchange program, sharing information with younger teens in Burkina Faso about their lives in Ann Arbor and learning about the culture of their peers in West Africa.

Check out our photo scrapbook. It shows us working on some of our service projects and is also what we sent to teens in West Africa. View our YEP/West Africa Exchange page.

Help others and have fun at SHARP Corps one hour a week from 3:00 to 4:00 after school at Tappan Middle School. Snacks are provided too! Come to be part of something great! For fall 2003 schedule information please ask at your school office or email us at sharpcorps@youthempowerment.com now and we will let you know by early September.

YEP would like to see SHARP Corps expand to other middle schools.
If you would like to talk about setting up a SHARP Corps volunteer club at your middle school, Email us at sharpcorps@youthempowerment.com.

If you are an Ann Arbor teen, University of Michigan student or adult who would like to volunteer with SHARP Corps on a weekly basis, email us at sharpcorps@youthempowerment.com, or call us at 761-3005. Documentation of community service hours can be provided.

Photo Scrap Book