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The Sea Dragon Service Ambassadors were awarded the ACAMIS Jim Koerschen Award. The award is given to encourage and stimulate innovative leadership, academic and service programs led by students. The Jim Koerschen Award is highly competitive with 39 ACAMIS affiliated schools applying to receive the award. DAIS’s Sea Dragon Service Ambassadors were one of the two applicants selected to receive the award which was accompanied by a $1,250 USD grant to help fund the group’s initiatives.
The Sea Dragon Service Ambassadors are a leadership group at DAIS which focuses on school-wide service projects that target needs in the wider community. The 2024-2025 school year was the inaugural year for the Ambassadors. The group has 15 student members and is supervised by Mr. Jacob Singleton. The Ambassadors in their inaugural year worked on three major service projects.
Throughout the first quarter, the Ambassadors led a fundraiser for cancer prevention medical treatment. The Ambassadors targeted raising money for the Xinghai Anti-Cancer Park organization. The students organized a Terry Fox Run whereby students gained pledges from their family and friends to contribute to the cause based on committing to completing the run organized by the Ambassadors. Additionally, to help raise money for their cause, the Ambassadors organized a ‘Tape-a-Teacher’ event where students bought a segment of tape so they could tape their favorite teacher to a light post. The campaign was very successful and raised over 10,000 RMB.
Sea Dragon Service Ambassador Michael Ma was asked to comment about his experience organizing the event: "Personally, I am a runner, so I also took on the responsibility of accompanying people to run outside the school. It was a pleasure to lead the group to raise awareness of cancer research through our own actions."
DAIS/DHS Terry Fox Run recognized at Xinghai Anti-Cancer Park, Dalian
In the second quarter, the Ambassadors worked to collect gift boxes for the children living at the Dalian Welfare Institute. The group decided to have a competition between advisory classes to collect the most gift boxes. The Ambassadors went to classrooms to drum up support and in the end DAIS collected more than 100 kilograms of toys, clothing and books for the children at the Dalian Welfare Institute.
Angel Wang, a senior Ambassador, reflected on the process of deciding service projects: "Everyone was very excited and shared their unique ideas about how to make this service program better."
The third quarter brought the service from the Ambassadors closer to home. The Ambassadors started a food drive for the Jinshitan Wolong Nursing Home. Each advisory class competed by collecting the most non-perishable food to donate to the Wolong Nursing Home. The winning advisory received a pizza party for their efforts! In the end, the school collected more than 100 kilograms of food for the donation.
In addition to the food, the Ambassadors led an art service project to create a mural to donate to the residents of the Wolong Nursing Home. The project was spearheaded by Ambassador Victoria Liu (fourth from the left in the picture below) who personally put in over 20 hours of her free time to ensure the mural was beautiful. The Ambassadors were able to hand deliver the foods and mural to the residents of the nursing home and were personally thanked by the small community.
The Sea Dragon Service Ambassadors also offered service to our campus community. The Ambassadors led Mental Health Week by creating activities which raised mental health awareness. The Ambassadors offered tutoring service in math and science. The group also supported the overall fitness of the student body by creating ‘Fitness Pals’ which paired Ambassadors with those on campus looking for a partner on their fitness journey. The Ambassadors hope to add more service projects for our campus next year.
The group’s supervisor Mr. Singleton hopes the Ambassadors can help develop a culture of service-leadership within the school community: "What we are trying to do is make the helping of others transformational, not just transformational in ourselves or our community, but in the very essence of who we are as a school."
The Jim Koerschen Award will help the group achieve some of their ambitious targets for the next year. But it seems major strides have already been made in achieving a culture of service-leadership.
Ambassador Anna Zhao, a member of the group, reflected on what her experience with the group meant for her: "Being an Ambassador taught me that leadership is really about compassion, consistency, and creating impact for the surrounding community."
Written by: Mr. Jacob Singleton
