Extracurricular Case Study: Boca Buckets

I guide students to develop projects that often support a charity, use a committee process, and leave a legacy of involvement for ensuing years. Such unique experiences teach students not only how to plan, but also how to resolve unanticipated problems. They’ll enhance their team-building, communication, and time management skills, which will also be evident to a college. Every such project we plan together follows this guiding principle: “Do what you love or what interests you.” From that starting point, each student can work with me to create a meaningful project – and improve his or her chances for college admission. For more information about how your student can create a project, give me a call.

 

 

Boca Buckets, a project by Matthew Goodman

Matthew Goodman came to my office a month or so into his freshman year at Saint Andrew’s School. He had just come home from a school trip during which he helped rebuild homes in New Orleans decimated years earlier by Hurricane Katrina. Matthew was distressed by the amount of work still needed in New Orleans; that feeling motivated him to initiate a project to serve hometown people in Boca Raton whose property may also incur storm damage. After Hurricane Irma struck Boca in September of 2017, Boca Buckets, a hurricane cleanup kit, was born. 

Initially, Matthew and his family set up their buckets in West Delray Beach, where people were lined up for food stamps.  “It was a sweltering hot day,” recalls Goodman, “and people grabbed our buckets immediately. They sat on them as they waited in line and put them on their heads to shelter them from the sun.”  

Matthew’s initial experience proved the value of his cleanup buckets and showed him the impact that a teenager can make. 

Today, Boca Buckets has grown through partnerships with Habitat for Humanity, Home Depot, Kids in Distress, and Children of the Rainbow in Peru. Matthew has aided relief efforts in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, Lake Ida Park in West Delray Beach, the Bahamas after Dorian, Houston after Hurricane Harvey, and the children of Rainbow Village in Peru.  

According to Boca Buckets founder Matthew Goodman, who will attend Carleton University as a recruited football player in fall, 2020, “The way I see it, giving out these kits is just a ‘drop in the bucket’ toward helping people get back on their feet.”