Pictured are the students currently taking Panama Central School’s JCC Leadership class, who recently organized an Easter Egg Hunt for their community service project. From left to right are; Brooke Warner, Ava Ecker, Arehlyn Pattison, Jackson Scolton, Kolten Rhoades, and Richie Lyon. Submitted photo

PANAMA — Students currently enrolled in Panama Central School’s Jamestown Community College Leadership class are once again taking a leading role in the community, this time by organizing an Easter Egg Hunt.

A requirement for the course is for the class to put on a community service project, and falling in with the Easter season, this semester the class decided to organize and hold an Easter Egg Hunt back at the beginning of April. The JCC Leadership class, taught by Helen Keefe, is made up of Ava Ecker, Brooke Warner, Jackson Scolton, Kolten Rhoades, Richard Lyon and Arehlyn Pattison.

“I have had the chance to work with these kids for the last several years in one or more of the three JCC classes I teach: Public Speaking, Leadership Engagement, and Leadership Development,” Keefe said. “It has been amazing watching them learn how to lead. They have taken the strategies they have studied and implemented those ideas into real-world problems and solutions. They give the best speeches and presentations. They are comfortable speaking and talking in front of large groups. These are the soft skills that employers are looking for in potential employees.”

While Keefe noted the class began with a few different ideas for the community service project required for the class, the Easter Egg Hunt was chosen as it seemed to successfully hit all of the targets. Rhoades said the main goal with the hunt was to be able to have an immediate, positive impact on the community.

“We wanted to do something that had an immediate impact on our community in a positive way,” Rhoades said. “We wanted to give kids a morale boost when it is still kind of cold out and give them something they could get excited for that would also encourage them to think about the school. It was something positive for Easter and the kids had a lot of fun.”

Keefe said coming from a small community, sometimes trying to develop a project that can be impactful can be hard but added that she has heard nothing but great things from parents in the community about it. Organizational wise, it was noted by the class that everyone had their own roles, even though the class was relatively big for a project like this.

“Overall our group is pretty big for organizing an event like this, we were able to split up everyone based on what they wanted to do,” Pattinson said. “Me and Ava (Ecker) worked together on making advertisement posters and the rest of the crew helped stuff eggs and together we worked out the logistics and how we would split up the kids.”

Ecker added to that, saying that there were a few bumps in the road organizationally, but everything ended up going well.

“Overall the parents said their kids really liked it,” Ecker said. “There weren’t too many bumps plan wise, though we did have one or two parents fuss but we handled it and it ended up being spectacular.”

Students who take all three of the JCC Public Speaking, Leadership Engagement, and Leadership Development courses are then eligible for a SUNY Microcredential titled Leadership Advantage and Personal Effectiveness, Keefe said. These microcredentials are short, focused credentials that provide in-demand skills and learning experiences for current students and working professionals. Keefe noted that last year three students — Caroline Apthorpe, Abby Becker, and Brandon Keefe — were the first three students at Panama to ever earn that credential, and this year Ecker, Lyon and Rhoades will as well upon completion of the Leadership Development course.

“JCC has afforded local schools this amazing opportunity, and my hope is that more high school students will see the benefit of taking these three courses, especially the students here at Panama,” Keefe said. “The microcredential goals are to; develop an understanding of effective leadership skills and best practices, identify and cultivate personal leadership skills to capitalize on emerging opportunities, and engage in service learning within their communities.”

Multiple students in the class added that the project gave them an opportunity to engage with part of their community that they do not normally. This includes both elementary students and others in the community.

“The community service project was a good way to reach out to elementary students that we don’t usually connect with and reach out to others in the community to get everyone included,” Warner said.

Lyon added on to this, saying that while it gave the class the ability to connect more to the community, it also gave them an opportunity to draw attention to Panama School itself.

“It allowed us to better connect with a part of the community that we had little interaction with, and not only that it also drew attention to the school,” Lyon said. “The Easter Egg Hunt was not only for Panama students, and it helps to give Panama a good reputation.”

Overall the class received only positive feedback so far from the Easter Egg Hunt. This includes from Panama High School Principal, Scott Constantini, who acknowledged that the hunt was not the class’s first choice, but was still an event that ran well.

Scolton said the event also helped them to add to the idea that Panama Central School is a positive place to be.

“We want people around the area to know that Panama is a nice, positive place for people and their kids,” Scolton said. “We had a lot of people who helped, and I think the hunt shows how positive this place is compared to some others and we want to represent this place as positive because that is what it should be seen as.”