A New Addition To The Family

Benjamin and Justin were having fun with the new addition to the family, Ethan Kinnear. Although he may not look it, Ethan is Benjamin's age and in 7th grade. The two boys were having fun with him tonight while Cameron kept watching all of the action right in front of him.

Ethan's parents called during our dinner with the missionaries to see if he could earn any additional community service hours before Monday, March 5th. He and his family attended our ward Chili Cook Off last weekend and we discussed this topic. He even stayed afterwards for 1/2 hour to help clean up. Ethan and Benjamin are working towards being inducted into the National Junior Honor Society (NJHS).

In order to join, you must attend all mandatory meetings, need to have 20 community service hours per year, two of the total hours must be performed at their junior high doing peer tutoring on a Thursday - one hour each semester, complete and turn in their NJHS application, uphold the five pillars of the NJHS, pay a $5 membership dues each year, and maintain a minimum 3.0 GPA. At least 10 of those hours need to be completed by the March 5th deadline in order to be inducted into the NJHS at a special induction ceremony on March 14th.

Benjamin has no problem achieving his community service hours. With YM/Scouts and church, he has it covered. He already has 40 hours from Thanksgiving until now. They started later in the school year and told the kids they could count their time from Thanksgiving and continuing. If we could have counted hours from the beginning of the school year, Benjamin would have a ton more. The YM, EQ, and High Priests are in a rotation to mow at a Women's Shelter. He has put in several hours over there this school year and will start up again once the mowing begins.

Ethan needed another hour of community service by Monday in order for him to be eligible. We gave a suggestion of cleaning up a park or the grounds of the Woodridge Community Park District building. If he needed someone to work with, we sort of volunteered Benjamin to go. He told us that would be fine. Benjamin didn't mind doing this with his friend. We drove over and dropped him off at the park district building and planned to pick him up in one hour.

Clinton went to go pick up Benjamin, but passed Ethan's dad on the way over. They dropped him off for us and Ethan ended up staying for a while. Justin loves hanging out with Benjamin's friends and he is good about letting Justin hang out with him and his friends, too. Ethan is like a brother, but from a different mother. A picture of him and his three "brothers" was needed, so here it is. Thanks for the fun evening Ethan!