#ThursdayForGood: volunteering at Faraday Elementary School in Chicago

Wednesday, 20 August 2014

Several people in our office recently participated in #Thursday4Good by spending an afternoon volunteering at a school here in Chicago. Located a few miles west of downtown, Michael Faraday Elementary School is part of Chicago Public Schools and needed some help preparing for the upcoming year.

When we arrived at the school lobby, we met with one of the administrators who described several projects with which they needed some help. Our team broke up into a few groups and headed to different parts of the school (thankfully, a hall pass was not needed to get around).

One group headed to the teacher’s lounge, a large space that was mostly unusable due to the entire room being filled with boxes of unused books. This is how it looked when we got there:

#ThursdayForGood: volunteering at Faraday Elementary School in Chicago

After our team spent a few hours breaking down the boxes and organizing books, the room was clear and the teachers were excited to finally have a place to go during their breaks.

#ThursdayForGood: volunteering at Faraday Elementary School in Chicago

Another group had the daunting task of cleaning the gym stage and organizing all the supplies spread across an area normally reserved for programs and plays. We brought everything down onto the floor, organized it into piles and cleaned off the stage. Caitlyn’s Tweet shows how it looked when we first got there and the final result when we were done.

The last small team spent the afternoon working outside in the school’s reading garden. They dug up a plot of land, planted some new flowers and picked up trash on the school’s property.

#ThursdayForGood: volunteering at Faraday Elementary School in Chicago

Everyone at Twitter who joined us for #Thursday4Good was excited to help the school get ready for the new year. Thanks to the staff of Faraday Elementary School for letting us join you and we hope we can help out again soon!

All images courtesy of Karilyn Thibodeau for Twitter, Inc.