Run, Walk, Bike for Congo Women

Living on the other side of the world from it, Riverway students Kayton McKern and Sarah Clay had never even heard of the Democratic Republic of Congo. But Lisa Shannon's Run for the Congo, which aired at the Frozen River Film Festival, opened the teens` eyes to the crushing reality of the ongoing civil war in there, and suddenly the Congo became very real to them.
     Most especially, McKern said, they were struck by the plight of women in the Congo, 90% of whom have been raped as a vicious act of civil war. IN all some 5.4 million are estimated to have been killed, and those remaining live in an atmosphere of utter hopelessness.
      Inspired by Run for the Congo, the girls decided to make a benefit for victims their spring project right here in Winona, hoping that doing so would awaken the community to their plight and raise money that could sponsor a woman trying to survive there.
     The girls and their classmates have recruited volunteers, music, refreshments and a stretch of bike path for their plan, which is a run/walk/bike benefit scheduled for Friday afternoon.
     Starting off at the bandshell in Lake Par between 2 and 6 p.m., participants are invited to go around the lake by whatever means they choose. The Riverway students on hand will be available to collect a suggested $10 donation per participant with the hope of reaching the $708, amount they need to sponsor two women.
     With that sponsorship, Women for Women international will reach out to women suffering from the oppression war brings and give them job skills and counseling to help them support themselves in the villages where they live. So far, McKern said, they have raised $150, and will need 56 participants Friday t reach their goal. Local musicians, refreshments, and information about Women for Women International will be on hand Friday for all to stop by and enjoy.
    The students are thankful for the support they have received towards the event from Riverway Learning Community and thankful to the Frozen River Film Festival for opening their eyes and hearts to a cause they previously knew nothing about.
  

Five Riverway Learning Community Win state wide charter school essay!

On Wednesday, May 4th 2011, Five talented students from Riverway Learning Community will be given the honor of reading their essays on the steps of the State Capital building. This ceremony is part of a week-long celebration of National Charter Schools Week. The Charter School Essay Contest is an annual event. This year there were over 2000 essays entered into the contest in three different categories. The topic this year was “Describe Your Best Day at School”.  The winners in the age categories are Zane Al-Saeed, Morgan Sultze, Emily Spaag, and Brooke Powell. The special award over all was won by Kayton McKern.  Congratulations to all the winners!

Riverway to begin a Green Team and we are looking to YOU for involvement!

I am looking for parents, staff and students who are interested in joining the Riverway Learning Community Green Team that I want to get started. A Green Team can consist of parents, students, and staff with the task is to plan environmental activities and outreach. An option for environmental inspiration and our first meeting would be to visit Growing Power in Milwaukee WI at the end of this April. Their vision is to "inspire communities to build sustainable food systems that are equitable and ecologically sound, creating a just world, one food-secure community at a time." Check out http://www.growingpower.org/ for more information. During this exciting meeting, we can discuss our ideas during the drive, get a tour of their urban farm and volunteer to learn about what they are doing and how we can implement some of their ideas at Riverway.
A few Growing Power Pictures from their site:

Greenhouse showing container gardening with worms.

A beautiful urban garden!

The power of worms! Using worms to convert waste to nutrient rich fertilizer to mix with soil!

Aquaponics in their greenhouse.

Will Allen- Helping to grow the power!

Please contact Rochelle Jansen, MN GreenCorps member serving at Riverway (rochellemjansen@gmail.com or (507) 689-2844)  if you are interested in becoming part of the Green Team. If you would like to visit Growing Power but are not sure if you want to be on the team, you are still welcome!


Thank you, 
Rochelle
rochellemjansen@gmail.com
(507) 689-2844

Secondary Maple Syrup Project

       A group of Secondary students have been working on a Maple Syrup Project. We have tapped trees at the local park as well as a farm a couple of miles away from the school. We started collecting sap in the beginning of March.
       When tapping the trees we had a drill to drill the wholes in the trees. We then inserted the taps into the trees. After that we put the clear plastic tubes onto the end of the taps and the tubes into the buckets. Next year we will be using new taps in order to have a tighter fit in the whole so we won't lose sap that way.
       In order for the trees to produce sap the weather needs to drop below freezing at night and raise to above freezing during the day. This is because when the weather gets warm the water is pulled up through the trees roots to it's leaves and when the temperature drops the tree quickly pushes the sap down to the roots of the tree so that it doesn't freeze in it's branches. When the sap goes up and down like this it comes out of our taps and into our buckets.
        We have collected roughly 100 gallons of sap. This does not mean that we will have 100 gallons of syrup though. It takes about 40 gallons of sap to make just one gallon of syrup. Soon we will be starting the evaporation process. This is where we boil the sap in a special evaporation pan, over a campfire for a few days, adding sap little by little as we go along. Eventually the water boils out leaving behind the sugary substance called Maple Syrup!
        We will be selling our finished Maple Syrup as a fundraiser for our class once it is finished. If you are interested in purchasing some Maple Syrup from our classroom please contact Jamie Harper.

written by: Madison and Haley

Photos to come soon!

(Secondary 7-12) Bake Sale For Breast Cancer

A few students from Riverway's Secondary Class put together a date and time for a bake sale at Wal-Mart. Each student involved in this project as well as Riverway families and teachers made many different baked goods including different types of cookies, brownies, and bars. A lot of the baked goods even showed the pink spirit! We had a great outcome from this fundraiser. As a group, we raised $241.50. All the money will be going to Susan G. Komen for the cure. Also we will be making key necklaces. Some will be painted and others will have colored rhinestones on them.
written by: Brooke Powell

Primary Newsletter

Read our Primary Newsletter to see what we've been up to!

The Woodcock

Ms. Dana found an injured Woodcock on her back porch Tuesday morning. The students took care of the woodcock throughout the day, but unfortunately he didn't make it through the night. He was a beautiful bird and our class had a great opportunity to observe this amazing bird up-close. The feathers, legs, eyes, and beak were all so neat!

Musician visits Pre-Primary

Pre-Primary had a special guest visit, Emily Lewis some St. Catherine's University CCMP. She is a good friend of Ms. Dana. She is a fabulous musician. She played her viola and talked to the students about string instruments. They LOVED it! The classical music she played was beautiful and we hope to have her come back again! Thanks Emily!!!!

By Emma Krause

Several Secondary 9^th-12^th Riverway Learning Community students participated in a scarecrow contest for Lark Toys. The goal is to make a creative scarecrow. Chelsee, Kevin, and I (Jamie Harper helped us too), decided to make an owl scarecrow. We wanted it to be unique and superb.

We decided to use wood and sticks to make part of the body. We used a hula-hoop for the owl’s head and large record disks for its eyes, and used white sheets to put over the body so you wouldn’t see any sticks or wood peeking out. We painted the owl black and brown for the body and the beak. We used yellow and black paint for the eyes and the tail.

We had so much fun making the scarecrow that we recommend it for others to do next year. It will be a great experience for you. If we win first place, we win a $100 certificate to Lark Toys.

Give to the Max

Donate to Riverway on or before November 16th to celebrate Give to the Max.

What is Give to the Max?

Give to the Max Day returns as a day to inspire unprecedented levels of charitable giving in the state of Minnesota! Our goal is to beat our own record and get 40,000 people to give to their favorite Minnesota charity on November 16. Hundreds of nonprofits will offer the opportunity to double your dollars throughout the 24 hours. Every donation you make gives your favorite organization the chance to win even more money. On November 16 your gift makes a BIG difference.

DONATE TO RIVERWAY LEARNING COMMUNITY

Ronald McDonald House fundraiser

By Brooke Powell
Edited by Madison Berg

      Hello, my name is Brooke Powell. Just recently I came up with a project to raise money for the Ronald McDonald House. A few students also joined into my project, their names are Madison, Michaela, Taylor and Jani Rae. Our fundraising activities were the “10 days of giving for RMH,” a book and bear drive, a pop tab collection and a bake sale. We did this project because we know that the Ronald McDonald House is a great place and they could definitely use the help. 

    Some of you are probably wondering what the Ronald McDonald House is…Well it’s basically a “home away from home” for both children and their families. But this isn’t just a home for anyone it’s for the families with children that have ongoing medical treatment at Mayo Clinic. There are children who have doctor’s appointments 2-3 times a week, if not more. If their parents are driving over an hour to Rochester every other day, the money they would be spending on gas would be ridiculous, right? Well, that’s were the Ronald McDonald House comes in handy.

            The Ronald McDonald House provides much more than a home for families. They also provide games, toys, movies nights, crafts, activities, and much more. Sounds like a fun place, right?

            There are 42 guest bedrooms in the Ronald McDonald House. There isn’t really a cost to stay there. Although, they do ask for a 10 dollar night donation per family, if possible, but it's not required.

            Most of the staff at the Ronald McDonald House are volunteers. They help with cleaning, greeting guests, answering phone calls and much more. They also provide a shoulder to cry on after a hard day at the hospital.

            Since you’ve learned about the Ronald McDonald House, you probably want to know more about our fundraiser. We did many different things to benefit the Ronald McDonald House. Recently we just had a bake sale at Wal-Mart. We sold baked goods and homemade crafts. Our bake sale was a great success, we made 235 dollars for the RMH. We also were able to collect roughly 50 pounds of pop tabs, 70 pounds of food, 35 pounds of cleaning supplies and household items, and some toys, movies, and art supplies for the Ronald McDonald House!

           On Tuesday October 19^th we traveled to the Ronald McDonald House in Rochester Minnesota to deliver the donations. The staff at the Ronald McDonald were extremely grateful for what we donated and surprised by how much we had accomplished. We also got a tour of the first floor and learned lots about the Ronald McDonald House. Overall this was a great project and for a great cause. We are happy we were able to help!

                                Here are some pictures of our trip to the Ronald McDonald House!

                                                                 Packing up the food

                                                           Signing the donation forms

                                                         On the tour: The game room

                                                   On the tour: The art room

                                                The giant map. People who stay in the RMH put
                                          a pin in to show where they are from. People have come
                                          from all over the world to stay there.          

                                                 We got our picture with Ronald McDonald!

Saturday School

By Madison Berg

 On Saturday, October 2, 2010, our school had our first Saturday of the school year. For this Saturday school, instead of having it at our school, we had it at Whitewater State Park. Once families arrived at Riverway, they had the choice of riding the bus, or driving their own vehicles to Whitewater. Then in a big line of cars and one bus we made our way to Whitewater State Park.
  
     Once we'd made it to Whitewater, the morning consisted of three different hikes. Everyone chose one of the three hikes to go on. The three hikes were, "The Prairie Walk", "The Hawk Walk" (a.k.a, Chimney Rock), and "The Coyote Walk."  Once everyone got back to the pavilion we had lunch. Lunch consisted of Lasagna that Fred and Dave made, and a pot luck that everyone else contributed too.

     When everyone finished lunch the afternoon sessions got started. Most of the group went on the fossil hunt. They listened to a short presentation on fossils and then went to a fossil site down the road to look for fossils. A small part of the group participated in a service learning project near the pavilion. That group walked around and picked up garbage around a large portion of the park. Overall I think everyone had a great time at this Saturday School!

Riverway Potato Harvest

By: Dominick Adank

On September 30th, Jaime Harper and a group of Secondary 9-12 students went to harvest potatoes for Fairview Farms. Fairview has been supplying potatoes and many other types of vegetables for our school lunch program. Since they have been so generous to offer us their products, we decided to lend our time and effort to help them with their work. We left our school at around 8:30 and arrived at the farm shortly after 9. We met up with John, one of the farmers, and he gave us some information on potatoes and how their farm runs. After that we started our potato picking extravaganza. They said they were growing 58 rows of 23 different types of potatoes. When we finished, we had completed about 4 rows of potatoes, which was somewhere around 1900 lbs. After we finished, John and the other farmers let us take some potatoes with us. We had such a good time; we told them we would help him out again some time in the near future.