Ormond Beach Middle

In January 2017, Food Brings Hope adopted the children of Ormond Beach Middle School. OBMS wasn’t a Title 1 school so the school had to overcome many obstacles and work very hard for the program to be approved. After going through many conversations of convincing following with another denial, Mrs. Winch was finally able to convince Mrs. Hosseini and the Board Members to see the need to implement the program due to the large number of homeless students that attended the school. After the program was approved in January 2017, it continues to be a popular program for students to participate in each year. This year the program works with 24 students in the school who are active participates in the program.

At Ormond Beach Middle School, Teen Zone provides enrichment and character-building activities. Our program meets every Thursday after school in a teachers classroom. The students are given a nutritious for dinner while the teachers complete their individual student conferencing. During this time, we implement peer and teacher mentoring through grade conferencing, tutoring, and emotional support. The program wants a bright future for our students, so we put high importance on the student’s grades. We effectively keep up with grades so that the students live up to their potential. We keep up with the student’s grades through an excel sheet that we continually update so we have the most recent accurate grade information. The excel sheet gives us the ability to compare the student’s grades from quarter to quarter so we can observe grows and grows. Currently, this year, from quarter one to quarter two 18 out of 24 students increased their overall class average.

We will put in place support, strategies, and incentives to make sure the students do not fail a class.
After we complete our weekly mentoring with each student individually, the students will participate in an activity, if they are not needing to catch up on class work. We experiment with many different activities for students to partake in. The students sometimes work with STEM projects purchased through Amazon. These activities encourage them to use their problem-solving abilities to build something. During these projects, students who lack confidence in their educational abilities, get to build their confidence after seeing how successful they are with hands-on projects. Middle schoolers go through many life changes and face many difficult social situations that they don’t know how to approach or deal with. So, every other week we will hold a life/social skill instruction. This gives us the opportunity to have a discussion with the students about appropriate ways to act and handle certain situations. During the holiday times, or upcoming school breaks, we will host a special occasion activity, for example, students will learn and cook a recipe, play in a basketball game against each other, or experience painting with a twist.

Since Food Brings Hope offers so much to individuals in the community who are less fortunate, it is important for us to make sure the students contribute to the community through an act of kindness. Food Brings Hope has allowed Teen Zone to help cultivate our students by teaching them the importance of giving back with Community Service Projects. We will have them give back to the community in different ways, for example, making toiletry bags for the community Bath House or landscape an elderly neighbor’s yard.
This program provides nourishing meals, enhanced academics, and rewards for improvement in our school. It gives students the opportunity to experience fun sporting events and tour different colleges. A big contribution that it offers is giving the students, who don’t have the means, scholarships to attend a school trip/activity, like, for example, Gradventure.

We offer a pleather array of activities to show the students they can improve their lives and to provide them with tools and guidance to enhance the quality of their lives in the years to come.

Currently we meet every Thursday and occasionally on a Wednesday or Friday for additional activities.