The D.L. Sims Elementary School’s Social Butterflies service club recently held its annual Cereal Drive for the families of Phoenix Pass, a transition housing program for homeless women and children in Rockdale County.
With help from the SES community and the faculty and staff of Memorial Middle School, the Social Butterflies collected and donated more than 269 boxes of cereal and other breakfast items.
The Cereal Drive Initiative was an idea that Fatima P. Cheffen started years ago when she taught middle school. “I wanted to organize a different type of drive instead the traditional canned food drive, so I chose to help families tackle hunger by providing the ‘most important meal of the day’…breakfast!,” said Cheffen, who is now a teacher at SES and advisor to Social Butterflies.
Since 2015, the Social Butterflies has hosted the Cereal Drive to fight hunger and collectively, it has raised and delivered over 700 boxes of dry breakfast cereal to assist the women and children of Phoenix Pass.
However, the organization is more than just a service club. It is a mentoring group for girls. The mission of the Social Butterflies is to empower girls through self-esteem building activities, character development, mentoring, academic support/enrichment that encourages them to achieve success in a safe and supportive environment.
“This mentoring group is important to me because I truly enjoy working with and positively influencing and empowering young ladies. At the same time, we hope to raise awareness to those in our communities who need help and to model for other youth that they are never too young to lend a helping hand,” said Cheffen.
Cheffen has been advising the service club and mentoring group for four years. The Social Butterflies currently consists of 50 fourth- and fifth-grade girls.
“My favorite part about being in Social Butterflies is all the community service projects. To me it is a joy to know that I am helping someone else,” said Christina Langley, an 11-year-old fifth grader.
Other service projects have included creating arts and crafts and visiting with the seniors at A. G. Rhodes Health & Rehabilitation Center, volunteering with Global Growers and the Atlanta Community Food Bank by assisting them with cleaning up a local farm, and supporting active participants in the 100 Girls of Code Conyers Chapter, where girls learn the basics of computer programming, web and game development.
“I believe it truly takes a village to raise children, so our efforts to give back to the communities helps our children learn and grow, and provide an opportunity for the children to pour back into their communities,” added Cheffen.
In other news
The 15th annual Atlanta 2-Day Walk for Breast Cancer raised over $1 million for Georgia breast cancer programs. Since 2003, the Atlanta 2-Day Walk for Breast Cancer has raised more than $14 million and awarded 302 grants to breast health and breast cancer programs in the state.
Information: To learn more about Social Butterflies, email Fatima Cheffen at fpcheffen@rockdale.k12.ga.us
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