Finley Community Club Ready for Great Things
September 24, 2024
If as Shakespeare wrote in “The Tempest” that “What’s past is prologue,” then the J. Taylor Finley Middle School Community Club is poised to enjoy its best year yet.
The club offers seventh and eighth grader a way to learn, engage, share, communicate and interact in the Finley community as well as throughout Huntington and Huntington Station.
The organization’s faculty advisors are Spanish teacher Ingrid Moreira and English/reading teacher Jessica Mollica. The duo is energetic, enthusiastic and creative.
“The Finley Community Club program is a way to build foundations, leadership, a sense of community and family within the middle school,” Ms. Mollica said. “The program identifies student role models and places them in the role of leadership. The club brings upon many benefits to our students from which they can enhance their skills. Helping to develop school culture and appreciation, increasing peer support and encouragement, fostering a sense of belonging, improving reasoning and better decision making skills are just a few of these advantages. Students also work together to help each other with their academics, as well as offering guidance, support and encouragement aimed to develop competence, character and camaraderie.”
Club members volunteered last year with Friends of Huntington Station Latin Quarter, a not-for-profit civic organization founded by Xavier Palacios and Ed Perez in 2010. Students participated in the HSLQ’s annual toy drive by helping with the distribution of the Christmas gifts for children and families of the Huntington Station community.
“We also helped with a project for Hispanic Heritage Month by collecting oral histories from people in the community with help from Carmen DiBartolomeo, who is not only the Finley librarian, but also a librarian at the Huntington Station Public Library,” Mrs. Moreira said. “To gain a deeper understanding of the community, students gathered oral histories from individuals of Hispanic and Latino heritage as well as from other nations. When conducting interviews with members of the community and families, Finley students recorded the conversations to be shared and saved with the participants when they were finished.”
The club enjoyed a second event at the Huntington Station Public Library, helping community members with technology support so parents could have access to their children’s parent portal, Parent Square platform, email and various library resources. “Communication between teachers and parents is imperative for students to be successful,” Mrs. Moreira said.
Last March, the Finley Community Club participated in the Kindness Rocks Project, “where we painted rocks with inspirational messages and placed them around the community in order to spread peace, love and kindness,” Ms. Mollica said. “Club members painted inspirational sentiments and words on the rocks with great creativity and they were eager to distribute them throughout their communities in the hopes that someone in need of a little inspiration might come across them and feel a little happier.”
The club mobilized again in May for a community cleanup sponsored by the Palacios Law Group. Participating organizations were given a large garbage pail along with bags, gloves and a trash “picker.” The groups were assigned zones in which they collected garbage and debris, cleaned and beautified in an effort to instill a sense of pride in the community.
“The Finley Community Club is a great way to bring students, teachers, parents, and communities together in a way that fosters teamwork, kindness and respect,” Ms. Mollica said. “Opportunities to become involved in their own community give students a sense of purpose and belonging and brings people together to share their experiences, support and altruism.”
