Dear Bank of Prairie Village Community~
Early when the Bank of Prairie Village first started, I interviewed a Shawnee Mission East High School student for a part-time summer position. She was very athletic, popular and a top student.
I asked her about her prior year at Shawnee Mission East. She started talking about her involvement in an organization called SHARE.
As she spoke about her volunteer work with SHARE, I was both confused and intrigued. I had never heard of such an organization and for the longest time I tried to get my head around the SHARE organization, its mission, purpose and work.
Although I initially acted like I knew about “SHARE”, after about five minutes I had to confess I had never before really heard of it.
She patiently explained SHARE was a volunteer “clearing house” at Shawnee Mission East. It essentially placed Shawnee Mission East students willing to volunteer their time and effort with various exiting community charities, nonprofits, and critical volunteer projects.
She started listing all the various charities, nonprofits and volunteer projects to which SHARE recruited and placed Shawnee Mission East student volunteers within the school, the school district, the City of Prairie Village, and the entire Kansas City Community.
Once I grasped the breath and scope of the SHARE organization I was dumbfounded.
My mind raced back to my Salina, Kansas years. I dare say I was pretty much the norm. Virtually everyone at Salina High Central spent their non-classroom time practicing sports, band, dance, theater, and cheerleading, while poorly attempting to complete homework assignments, watching television reruns or endlessly discussing “cars, music, and awkward teenage dating.” At best some of us had after school jobs to pay for such aforementioned “music, cars, and awkward teenage dating.”
I am not sure I remember anyone volunteering for nonprofits, charities or working on community projects~ unless so required by the court juvenile system. (I was aware of and participated in such court “ordered” community work.)
Given her description, I mentioned this SHARE organization must have a great many adult administrators directing and recruiting the student volunteers, vetting the charities, and keeping track of all the above. She smiled and said with some satisfaction, “Mr. Bolen SHARE is an entirely student run organization with only one Counselor who is there to provide guidance and advice. Everything is really done by the SHARE Executive Committee ~ entirely comprised of student leaders.”
She then explained, the Executive Committee was diverse group of highly energized, popular student leaders who in addition to their SHARE committee work also played sports, and usually were involved in cheerleading, dance, the band, school plays, student government, the newspaper as well as having non school jobs.
I started to ask her how the SM East students found all the extra time, to volunteer – when it hit me – rather than wasting time watching TV, playing video games, or endlessly “discussing music, cars and awkward teenage dating,” these SHARE students managed their time and activities in a very disciplined highly organized fashion.
I then noticed the student telling me all this with a well-worn Day-Timer organizer on the table in front of her, (Talk about impressing a prospective employer).
It began to hit me what a special place Shawnee Mission East High was, and how much more organized and community-minded these SHARE high school students were than my generation.
She offered to have me come by Shawnee Mission East during the school year and meet the SHARE Executive Board and their counselor. I quickly took her up on the offer and came face-to-face with a very amazing high performing, energetic and community-oriented group of high school students.
Although it was early in our Bank’s history, I decided we would be one of the first corporate sponsors of SHARE. Neither SHARE nor I knew exactly what being a “corporate sponsor” was – but over the years we figured it out.
Eventually, some of the SHARE parents came up with the idea of a SHARE community fundraiser, which they called Renovation Sensation. The idea was to have a few Shawnee Mission East families put their newly renovated homes on tour and sell tickets.
This must have been about 15 years ago. Since then, SHARE’s Annual Renovation Sensation has been a huge and ever-growing success- now with many large and numerous corporate sponsors.
This year I was invited to attend SHARE’s Annual Renovation Sensation Pre Tour-Patron Party. It has been a while since I last attended. Once again, I found my jaw dropping. SHARE’s impact just keeps growing.
During the program, the Shawnee Mission East Principal listed the over 61 Kansas City non-profits in the past year to which SHARE recruited and placed students. They ranged from helping kids with Autism, to comforting the elderly, domestic abuse centers, inner city tutoring programs, pet adoption agencies, Harvesters, Downs Syndrome efforts, elementary school mentoring programs ~ on and on. It was simply amazing.
The Shawnee Mission East Principal concluded his report by saying to the SM East student volunteers and their parents~
“You Matter Most When You Serve Others!”
What a great message to our future community leaders. We are so very lucky to have such great student volunteers in our community!
~ Dan Bolen
