Be the Change: It begins with Servant Leadership

Be the Change:
It Begins With
​Servant Leadership

"At Acton, we believe that being a good leader begins with serving others." Last year, Miss Ellaina, one of our Launchpad heroes, created and facilitated a school wide "Be the Change" community service project. Inspired by its impact, she has now developed a "Be the Change" family badge to invite all Acton heroes and parents into furthering their acts of Servant Leadership within the community.

Below are her reflections, her story of how this badge came to be, and the hopes and desires she has for it in the coming months!

How the Project Started...
At the beginning of Session 5 last year, my studio created a motto: “Be The Change’. We, as a tribe, agreed that we didn’t contribute to the being the change in Session 4 and that we needed to recommit to our promise. 

When I think of being the change, I think of influence. A big thing that we, as Launchpad heroes, remind ourselves of is the influence we have on the younger heroes and the inspiration we can give to them. In my mind, we as a whole could do a lot more to better influence the younger heroes. Two ideas sparked in my mind, the first being the importance of connecting and building relationships with other studios, no matter the age difference, and the second as the desire to give back to communities that are in need. 

So with those two thoughts, I started the Be The Change project. This project contained a lot of different ideas to get involved in communities, but the main focus was on inspiring generosity in ways that aren’t normally thought of - being the change in not only the Acton community, but in surrounding communities as well.
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My "Why" Behind the Project...
Teaching heroes key life lessons like what poverty is, gratitude, and even selflessness is essential to truly understand why we are called to be world changers. I find it very important to instill these skills and values in your heroes' minds. This learning experience can happen in moments of intentional family time spent together growing these skills. ​

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Last Year's Focus...
My focus last year was to:

• Involve each studio in a different project to understand different aspects of challenges we as communities face.
• Create a fundraising event of some kind.
• Encourage families to serve within the community.
• Host a drive at Acton.

One goal I achieved, for example, was with the Odyssey studio. My vision for this studio was to have them volunteer in a retirement home. There were several steps to take to organize this event, but my top priority was to connect with the Odyssey studio heroes see if they had interest in the project. Unsurprisingly, the heroes loved the idea and very fortunately I got connected with The Arbors assisted living facility, where we were able to go play games and have conversation with the residents a few times throughout the session.

Looking Forward...
The “Be The Change” Project is moving forward and presenting itself to individual families. I am happy to introduce the "Be The Change" Family Badge that has just been launched! This family badge will allow all family members to serve while providing heroes leadership opportunities to grow servant leadership skills. I invite you to take the next step and check out this new badge which will help your family develop traits that will be used in many settings!​

Check out the Be the Change Family Badge Here!!

Miss Ellaina

Acton Academy Lincoln Launchpad Hero