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By Zach Compton


Contributing Writer

 

Last Saturday (September 14th) Claiborne County schools celebrated their first SPARK club event at Claiborne High School: a showing of the film Hocus Pocus open to students from all schools across Claiborne County with free popcorn and water for every attendee.

SPARK (Students Providing Activities for Rural Kids) is a project created by Claiborne High School junior Eli Keck, who participated in this year’s first Appalachian Youth Leadership Summit (AYLS) hosted by Partners for Rural Impact (PRI) and Lincoln Memorial University.

“We had 40 high school kids from all over Eastern Kentucky and Tennessee, and the whole goal of our four-day event was for those kids to be able to see themselves as leaders inside of Appalachian communities,” said Amon Couch, the executive director for programming work at PRI. “Our kids are just as smart and just as capable as kids from anywhere else in the world. Every community has both assets and challenges, so we tasked the kids with utilizing those assets and coming up with an approach to those challenges.”

Couch said that Eli and the other kids at Claiborne High School saw a need for things for kids to do, so they created SPARK as their project.

“All we did was bring them together and give them space to figure out what they could do, as kids, to make a difference in their community. We’re thankful to the superintendent and for the community support to allow this event to happen, but mostly I’m super proud of Eli and all the other kids who came up with this project,” Couch added.

Keck and the other students behind SPARK independently approached businesses within the community to ask for help supporting the project.
“They did it all. They did it completely by themselves. Here’s the thing – I’m a 55 year old man. If I go to somebody and say ‘Will you help with this?’ they’ll say ‘Eh, maybe.’, but when a student comes to you and says: ‘Hey we want to be a part of something that’s bigger than ourselves. Will you help us?’ Who is going to say no to that? No one,” Couch said. “We’re very thankful to the community for stepping up and showing that they want to support this because — and I know it’s corny but it’s the truth — kids are the future, and if we don’t invest in them we’re setting ourselves up for future failure.”

Recognizing that kids in his community need more activities to do, Keck plans on hosting monthly events through SPARK for students in all of the schools in Claiborne County.
“We sometimes drive 30 to 45 minutes to sit in a parking lot and talk to each other, which is crazy to some people who live in bigger cities, but it’s what we have to do,” Keck said. 
“We began to think about how much we could improve our community by starting something so simple to help give our community some life.”

He said SPARK was started to help meet the needs of Claiborne County children and the program is open to all K-12 schools in the county as well as the Alpha Schools and even preschools.
Dalissa Noe, a teacher at Claiborne High School, serves as the sponsor for the SPARK club.

“When Eli came and asked me to sponsor this program it was a no brainer. He’s an amazing kid and he’s bringing a lot to our community to help all of our kids, not just here at Claiborne High, and we hope we can eventually expand the program and its reach to all of the schools in our community so everyone can attend these events,” she said.

Aside from the help of  Noe as the school sponsor for the program, Keck also needed to have his project approved by the school board, his school principal, and to ask for help from businesses within the community to help support SPARK projects going forward.

He said it was really exciting to see his ideas coming to fruition.

“We’ve been really nervous and really worried for months as we’ve been planning this event and putting everything together,” Keck said. “We’ve had to talk to a lot of people, which has created a lot of new experiences for me leading up to this event and the next few months. I spoke in front of the school board, spoke with my principal, had to get a letter of recommendation, and had to go to businesses around the community and talk to some really important people with high statuses as a high school student. It’s been a little bit challenging, but we try to take it day by day and approach it the same way we would as if we were explaining our project to a little kid.”

There were also several volunteers who helped to host the event, including teachers and students from Claiborne High, and State Trooper Andrew Roark who helped run security for the event.

“It’s great to see all of the teachers, kids, and even cops that have volunteered their time this weekend. No one is getting paid to be here, so it’s really lovely to see all of the people in the community that have shown up for our kids and will hopefully continue to show up in the months to come,” Noe said.

The event had a total of 130 attendees including volunteers and parents – a huge success for the project’s first event, and has members of the SPARK club even more excited about hosting their future events.

Keck said that he was already planning more events for the following months, and emphasized that he wanted the program to expand beyond just Claiborne High School.

“We actually have the next events planned out through December. Next month for October we’re doing a Trunk or Treat here in Claiborne High’s parking lot. For November we want to do a ‘Turkey Trot’ where everybody gets to dress up in funny costumes and run around the track. We’re trying to get some bounce houses together and arrange some fall games and carnival type games for that,” he said.  “Then for December we’re wanting to get some older kids together to read to the younger kids in the area, and we’re trying to get a surprise guest — Santa — to help us out with a toy drive. For that toy drive we’re planning on reaching out to principals at each Claiborne County school and asking for one kid for each grade level who they think needs it the most, and that’s who we’ll give a toy to.”