New to South Lakes this year, the Purple Star ambassador program is a student organization that works to connect with and support military-connected students. This April, the month of the military child, the group worked to celebrate military and government-connected students in many ways around the school.
Led by Sophomore Ainsley Sachse, the team of sophomores Emily Inman, Isabel Tellez, and Ava-Grace Satterfield got to work on creating a bulletin board, putting together an advisory lesson, and planning an ice cream social to make April special for military children at South Lakes.
Their first task, the bulletin board in the English hallway, was designed to spread awareness about military children by representing the characteristics that they must develop while their parents deploy or their families go through duty station moves.
“The word brat, as seen on the bulletin board, is the word to describe a military child. We decided to make it an acronym, standing for Brave, Resilient, Adaptive, and Tough. I believe these words correctly describe a military child because we are always moving around and are used to being new students,” Sachse explained in April’s staff meeting.
“The flower on the bulletin board is a dandelion, which is the flower of the military child. The hands are the petals of the dandelion, floating off the stem and becoming scattered all over. This is similar to how military children are all around us and are always moving. The hands also represent diversity in military children and the different countries that military children have moved to with their families,” added Sachse.
Another way that the Purple Star Ambassadors spread awareness was through their advisory lesson, in which they aimed to educate their peers about the unique experiences and hardships that military families across the country face.
“I created the advisory lesson to educate our peers about the struggles and experiences of military children and their families. As shown in the lesson slides, I interviewed three military-connected students about common experiences that military children face, and I am so grateful that I had the privilege of hearing and sharing their unique stories,” Satterfield expressed, adding, “I was so inspired to hear the stories of military kids at our school that are so different but similar to mine at the same time, and I hope that my advisory lesson helped other military kids at our school feel the same way I did, as well as educated others at our school about the experiences that some of their peers go through.”
To cap off an exciting month, the group hosted an ice cream social event and invited military and government-connected students to discuss and connect over their similar experiences while enjoying a sweet treat.
“As Purple Star Ambassadors, we hope that we can help military and government-connected students build connections and feel more supported by the projects we are working on. [Our main goal in our ice cream social event was] to help give military and government-connected students support and find people they can connect with,” said Purple Star Ambassador Emily Inman.
Following their work during the month of the military child, the ambassadors hope to host an interest meeting to grow the organization’s membership. They have big plans for next year as they plan to expand their outreach and plan more events to continue to support military and government connected students at South Lakes.
