While BA offers many opportunities to participate in the school community there are a limited number of opportunities to be directly involved in your child's classroom experience. The greatest number of these opportunities exists at kindergarten, but trail off significantly as your child advances through the grades. BUGS is one of only two programs that is open to classroom volunteers from K through 4th grade.
Let's face it - you're volunteering at school in general, and BUGS in particular for a couple of main reasons. You're doing it for your child, and you're doing it for yourself... For your own child: - Oodles of common sense and academic research proves that kids benefit tremendously when they see their parents
 actively involoved in their education. Period. - See your child munch happily on the produce they've helped grow. Every year students amaze their teachers and parents by relishing new things. Not just the food they've grown, but the natural and scientific processes in the world around them. And you get to be a part of that.
- Bragging rights for your child. The other students KNOW your kid has a cool parent. Uh-huh!
For yourself: - Spending time in a live class environment gets you a fascinating peek into the real school life of your child. OK, so that pretty much feeds into the first point above, but this is a wonderful opportunity to see the classroom dynamics at work and it provides a whole bunch of talking points to guide the "so, how was your day?" dinnertime chat.
- Bragging rights II. Yup - you get to dine out on those stories of the time you caught little Johnny before he fell into the bog, or had shy Susan leaping all around the classroom trying to fly like a bird.
- Friends - you'll be working with and meeting other volunteers who are doing this for the same reasons you are - instantly you have values in common.
- Putting down roots and contributing to your community. It just feels good to be involved, doesn't it?
- Broadening your own knowledge of the world around you and how that food gets on your plate. You can learn some really interesting stuff in BUGS. The material covers a wide range and there's something for everyone.
- C'mon - It's a kick in the pants! Let's not forget the FUN that comes from being involved in this hectic and often hilarious romp through the theme of the month.
Commonly voiced reasons NOT to participate: - "I don't have the time" Sad, but true, we barely have time to sneeze, let alone volunteer in our kid's school. The good news is that BUGS typically represents a time committment of between 1 and 2 hours a month. Some volunteers take that as a negotiated lunch break. Others have a deal with their manager on pto as needed, or may take a one day vacation which covers all 7 sessions thru the year. Most employers try to support community volunteerism so you may well get lucky. We just ask that while you're on campus you make sure to give the kids your full attention - and please turn off your portable electronic devices!
- "I'm not a teacher." Yup, neither are the rest of your co-volunteers. The program is structured to make it as easy as possible for you to lead and direct activities around the theme of the month. You grab the backpack, un-pack it, and go! Just so long as you can read faster than a kindergartener you'll do just fine!
- "I'm not a gardener." And you don't have to be. Seeing as garden time represents just one of three activity stations you can focus instead on the other two. Remember, these are kids' gardens - we're not trying to recreate Filoli or the Conservatory of Flowers here. The gardens typically take on a fairly freeform appearance. Venturing in to the garden one session you might not know that a student is pulling a carrot seedling instead of the weed thriving next to it but then you've just been presented with a learning experience. Now you get to show everyone what a baby carrot looks like!
- "I just don't think the subject matter is right for me." First let us say "thank you" for checking out the program and learning about the lessons. It's clear you have a strong interest in helping out in the class. Please take a moment to check out "Art in Action" to see if it's right for you. Some people think AIA is nearly as cool as BUGS, but we manage to be tolerant of such deluded individuals! (sorry Kelly, we couldn't help ourselves)
Here's what previous volunteers told us: We sampled our crew and picked out the most common phrases used to describe what they most liked about BUGS. Then we turned it into a word chart: |
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