Volunteers from STM, Montgomery Blair High School, and the East Silver Spring Elementary community have been working with twenty-five 3rd-5th grade ESSES students after school for the past 3 weeks on their STEM Night projects. The students worked hard to develop either research or engineering projects. This program was made possible through the hard work of parent John Seelke who coordinated and recruited volunteers and teacher/STEM chair Night Richard Weerts who facilitated the interaction between the students and teachers and volunteers. The students are excited to share their work at STEM Night on Thursday, March 28 from 6:30-8pm. STM will also be there with some fun exhibits and activities!

STM gave out new books and read to the children at the Difference Makers Kokua Foods distribution at Rolling Terrace Elementary School on March 17, 2019. It was great seeing everyone reading together!

STM received a wonderful surprise donation of 275 books and handmade bookmarks from the wonderful students at St. Patrick’s Catholic School, Rockville, MD on March 13, 2019. We are honored to be the recipients of your service project to help a local organization during Catholic Schools Week. Our thanks to Cindy Ladd for coordinating and organizing this effort and to St. Patrick’s for their amazing donation.

Small Things Matter is getting ready for #JSERVE2019 on April 7 at B’nai Tzedek Potomac where we will be partnering with teens from Difference Makers and B’nai Tzedek to assemble our “Be Your Own Author” kits that will be shared with children in need at food distributions, children’s hospitals, and homeless shelters. We met with DM on Tuesday, March 12 and shared our different book formats (blank, lined, and comic book) and writing prompts and got some very valuable feedback which we will be incorporating in the coming weeks. If you are in middle or high school and would like to join us on April 7 please sign up here: https://jserve.org/2019projectregistration/potomac. We will be awarding SSL hours for your participation.

Small Things Matter read monster stories and crafted monster stuffies at the “My Monster and Me” event on Saturday, March 9 at Takoma Park Maryland Library. Lana, Ella, and Rachel did a great job helping the children and reading stories to them. Our thanks to Karen MacPherson, Children and Youth Services Coordinator for providing us with amazing monster books and giving us amazing support, to the Friends of the Takoma Park Maryland Library for hosting this event, and last but not least to all the wonderful families who came out to have fun with us!

Our thanks to Aimee Le for her generous donation of children’s books for our Books for Bedtime literacy program on March 7, 2019. In honor of Dr. Seuss’ birthday we’d like to share this wonderful quote: “The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” – Dr. Seuss

STM shared new books with the children and families attending the Difference Makers Kokua Foods distribution on March 3, 2019. Thanks everyone for kind donations of books and money that make this possible!

Our thanks to Pearl, YiQi, and Michelle from Julius West Middle School for hosting a book drive and collecting monetary donations on February 16-18 for our Books for Bedtime literacy program. We will be purchasing books for our program with the money you raised. Thank you for your kindness and support!

Our thanks to Siddharth from Julius West Middle School for hosting a book drive on February 21-23 and for making bookmarks for our Books for Bedtime literacy program. We are excited to share these books and fun bookmarks with our kids. Thank you!

Lana made some fun 1.5″ buttons in honor of Zilly’s 5th birthday. Zilly is the much loved therapy dog at The Children’s Inn at NIH. Happy Birthday Zilly!