It’s not very uncommon to hear people lament that today’s generation doesn’t measure up to past generations. The critics sometimes call this the “me generation,” as if this generation cares little about anyone but themselves. Indeed some of today’s generation are undoubtedly guilty as charged, but would it be fair to paint all of them with the same broad brush?
The answer to that question is not far away. There’s a club at Dutch Fork High School named the DFHS Beta Club. Kelly Eckstrom is a DFHS history teacher and the club’s faculty sponsor. Having over 230 members, it’s one of the larger clubs on campus. It’s also an extremely active one. In addition to encouraging its members to excel academically, it encourages them to make a consistently positive difference in the community through various student-led projects.
These are three recent examples:
- On a Sunday afternoon in October, about eighty members worked in support of Family Connection SC’s “Buddy Walk for Down Syndrome” held at Saluda Shoals Park. This was the Club’s tenth year supporting this statewide event.
- On a Saturday in November, about fifty members traveled at their own expense to a rural section of neighboring Calhoun County and spent the entire day clearing a thickly overgrown African American cemetery and uncovering fallen gravestones that were buried by years of accumulated decayed vegetation. The cemetery included at least three hundred graves, some of which were dated in the late 1700s. This was the Club’s second year working on this project organized by a local historian who has ancestors interred in the cemetery.
- During December, Club members participated in “Operation Christmas Child,” an international project sponsored by Samaratan’s Purse. Club members collected monetary donations to buy hygiene products and articles of clothing that they packed in shoeboxes for delivery to young children in Eastern Europe. This was the Club’s third year participating in this international project.
What do these projects have in common? They all demonstrate that these motivated DFHS students not only care for others but they’re willing to actively demonstrate that care by contributing their own time and resources to make their world a better place.
Faculty sponsor Kelly Eckstrom speaks with pride of the impressive attributes she sees in her Beta Club members, attributes that include their committed spirit of volunteerism and their consistent dependability, generosity, polite behavior, consideration of others, and academic focus. She points out that these are among the reasons the National Beta organization bestowed a School of Distinction Award and a School of Merit Award on the DFHS Beta Club last year. She also asserts that these are among the reasons that recently-graduated Club members have been admitted to flagship universities within the state as well as to prestigious out-of-state universities like Princeton, MIT, Vanderbilt, University of Pennsylvania, UNC Chapel Hill, and Georgia Tech.
Mrs. Eckstrom summed it up by saying, “With all the turmoil and division we often see around us, it’s inspiring to see impressive student leaders like these who actively lead by example.”
