“Milestones of Freedom” Explained

Watch a video about an elementary school that experienced Milestones of Freedom!

Get ready for an emotional experience that will rock your school, thrill your heart and give
you hope for the future of America! This is an interactive simulated experience that staff and
participants love!

Participants are immigrants with the quest to become TRUE AMERICANS. Most people in
America were born in America and don’t know what it is like to not have the freedoms and
blessing we have. This event provides an opportunity for students to become “immigrants” on
a quest to become TRUE AMERICANS. It is an opportunity to “re-dedicate” our citizenship
in the principles that have made America great.

Volunteers and faculty become “Ellis Island Officials” who explain each Milestone of
Freedom, ask students to make the necessary citizenship commitments, and administer the
citizenship test.

We define a TRUE AMERICAN as someone who loves the principles America was founded
upon and who will work to keep America free!

To recognize TRUE AMERICANS your school is turned into Ellis Island complete with an
interactive assembly, passports, citizenship testing, citizenship commitments and much more!
Those involved will sense a swell of patriotism as they go through the requirements to
become TRUE AMERICANS.

Full Event: Before the day starts teachers are taken through an in-service training where they
are given materials. Immigrants (students) come to an assembly and learn about Ellis Island
and why America is nation that many people will risk almost anything to come to. Then
students are taken through the Milestones of Freedom (staffed by parents who become Ellis
Island Officials) where they make citizenship commitments in their passports. They also take
their 10-question citizenship test, which must be passed with a score of 70%. Upon
completion of all of the Milestones, immigrants return for the closing assembly where they
take the mock Oath of Citizenship and get their citizenship certificates and TRUE
AMERICAN stickers.

Assembly Only: Students come to the auditorium and experience a 45-minute presentation in
an interactive and dramatic presentation. At the conclusion the students take the Oath of
Citizenship. Teachers can obtain additional teaching aids to follow-through in the classroom.

The event can be left up in the evening for a presentation open to families and members of the
community.