SOROPTIMIST INTERNATIONAL of PATTERSON
COMMUNITY SERVICE PROJECTS

The Infant Care and Responsibility Project, known to Soroptimist International of Patterson as ICARE, took a couple of years of planning to get the program into Patterson High School. The group's President Gigi Wharton spearheaded the project. Member Geri Azevedo divided the club members into committees and the whole club contributed information to the Making a Difference for Women Grant. Geri and her team submitted the proposal and the club waited... and waited. Then at one of the last meetings of the year President Gigi was reading the mail aloud to the members and all were excited to receive a grant for $5,000 for the Baby Think It Over Dolls for the ICARE program. The program began in January at the High School with great success. The class teacher Bobby Sheets is dedicated and the students find having the babies is not as easy as it looks! Soroptimists purchased nine dolls including a "crack baby " that the students do not take home. The dolls have a computer chip inside and the dolls cry, wet, are fed and carried around by the student for a weekend. All of the actions and wants of the doll are recorded and handed in at the end of the weekend. The doll is programed to do everything a real baby does. Students get the idea quickly that parenting is work.

Soroptimist President Michele Havener and club members attended the orientation night and the program was accepted with much positive comment. At the end of the year two of the students spoke to the club thanked the members for the program and told of their experiences with the dolls.

Throughout the classes the students follow a curriculum book, answer questions and take tests. Hopefully, the program can expand to the middle school level in the future. The Patterson Junior High students moved to a new middle school campus in January and there is a teacher there interested in the program. The members of the club are working together to bring this well accepted program to more students. Members maintain the dolls and store them for the summer so they are ready when the school year begins again in August.