Urbandale Students Aid Community With 'Hope In Action' Projects

URBANDALE, IA — Students at Urbandale High School have formed a new group that will broaden their volunteer efforts in the community with the hope that their action will change the world. And it's named just that: Hope in Action.

The student group has completed three efforts already this school year, starting with a successful Combat Hunger campaign for the Food Bank of Iowa that saw students raise money to provide 12,827 meals. Next was a project to give people in a Des Moines neighborhood more access to free books, followed by a partnership with the Babies Need Boxes campaign.

“Hope In Action is striving to plant hope in our community through action by addressing various social issues,” senior Maya Sims said in a district news release. “The idea is if we plant a little hope over here and a little hope over there and so on, eventually there will be an entire world full of hope because people will latch on to the hope we’ve planted and go plant their own."

Sims added the Hope in Action student members already have seen that happen. One student expanded on the group's "little free library" project by recommending students read to young children, while another student volunteered to make a little free library, which is a weatherproof box erected in a public area where people can donate and take books at their will.

Still more Urbandale students "planted lots of pieces of hope" by helping the Babies Need Boxes organization after reaching out to the Iowa Homeless Youth Center to see how they could become involved with the organization, Sims said. "Hope In Action is about more than just volunteering here and there: It’s about planting hope in the community in a way that inspires others to do the same.”

“UHS has had a long history with clubs like Best Buddies, Leo Club, and Key Club, doing great service in our community connected to their parent organizations (Lions, Kiwanis, Best Buddies),” Principal Tim Carver said in the district news release, adding that the group's mission aligned with the school's vision.

"As we look at Hope In Action’s work this far, they are doing just that: changing the world through action," Carver said.

— Main photo: UHS junior Evan Smith, a Hope in Action member, stands near the little free library that he built. The group installed the little free library in the Des Moines Oakridge Neighborhood. “It showed me how little things can help the community in bigger ways," Smith said of the project./Student photo provided by Urbandale schools