The Five Claw Community Project was born out of the positive results we experienced when we brought at risk or disadvantaged youth into our martial arts programs.
This martial arts environment creates a unique learning experience for our students. The martial arts environment is ideally designed to teach the importance of discipline, focus, and respect for self and others. Because of this, our children and youth programs have been especially rewarding, as it became very clear that our programs, and the resultant camaraderie amongst our students, helped children develop social skills even as they were learning physical skills.
We began our Junior Instructor program so that our teen students could develop leadership skills while learning to teach martial arts to younger students. Junior Instructors are coached into becoming Mentors to younger or newer students. In so doing, they learn to give back to the community that gave to them. We believe this helps to create young adults who better understand the benefits of belonging to, participating in, and working within, a community.
Our AfterSchool Programs give kids a structured, safe and productive environment in which to spend time after school.
We know that there are many at risk youth who could benefit from our programs, but do not have the financial or social resources to be able to participate. Five Claw has always sponsored as many of those young people as we could.
The results have been astounding.
We have guided troubled youths through our programs and watch them grow into confident peer mentors who now assist other younger students. We have seen children with physical or mental handicaps develop self-confidence they had previously lacked.
The Five Claw Community Project was born out of this experience.
The Five Claw Community Project was created to help us raise funds so that we can provide sponsorship and programs to at risk youth and financially disadvantaged children.
We have teamed up with Sierra NonProfit Services to help us work towards that goal. Sierra NonProfit Services is now accepting donations for Five Claw as our fiscal agent. Organizations and individuals who would like to sponsor students into Five Claw Programs can do so through Sierra NonProfit Services. Your donation is tax deductible and goes directly into helping others in our community. For more information on sponsorship or donating to our community programs contact Shizong Dan Sandelin at our main Sonora office.
