Community

Community!

This is a topic that is a big part of our Social Studies curriculum.  My students had already learned that as a good citizen that they should know ways that they could help their community. After reviewing our previously learned content,

I wanted to broaden the students’ definition of community by extending it beyond our school walls and local community. I read the book Malala Yousafzai out loud to my students. Several of my students are originally from the Middle East and they were familiar with this incredible young lady. We discussed the impact she made on the world at a young age. We discussed that as part of this topic that our class would come up with a community service project in which everyone could participate.

Next, we watched our monthly video from our athlete mentor, Alex Rigsby. She challenged the students to come up with a positive way they impact their community and decide as a class one way we could help our school. We put our head together and brainstormed ideas for helping our school community. The students voted and decided to take the first few minutes of recess to help clear their playground of trash. The students began drawing and writing about the first part of the challenge. We took pictures to share with Alex.

For our community service project, we decided to team up with Ms. Kurtz’s class. The students had to decide between Pennies for Patriots which my class last year started or collecting soda can tabs for the Ronald McDonald House. After much discussion and voting, the students were pretty much evenly split. They asked if we could do both projects and that what’s we decided to do. We agreed to do Pennies for Patriots first, and then begin the second project after the first of the year.

Pennies for Patriots support Operation Gratitude. Here is a little background information about the organization.

Operation Gratitude annually sends more than 150,000 care packages filled with snacks, entertainment, hygiene, and hand-made items, plus personal letters of appreciation, to New Recruits, Veterans, First Responders, Wounded Warriors, Care Givers, and to individually named U.S. Service Members deployed overseas.  Their mission is to lift the spirits and meet the evolving needs of our Active Duty and Veteran communities, and provide volunteer opportunities for all Americans to express their appreciation to members of our Military.  Each package contains donated products valued at $75-100 and costs the organization $15 to assemble and ship.  Since its inception in 2003, Operation Gratitude volunteers have shipped more than One Million Care Packages.

In addition to collecting coins, students were encouraged to write letters and draw pictures for the soldiers. Students began immediately working on the project. In writing, they wrote informational paragraphs about the project. Selected students read their paragraphs on our morning news show to spread the word. Flyers needed to be created to hang up around school and the students were on it. They assembled collection kits for each classroom. I was thrilled when the students wanted to set a goal for their project. We had to negotiate the amount and finally decided on a goal of $500.00.  That’s a lot of pennies!

As of today, we have collected close to $500. We also have quite the stack of cards and pictures to mail to our soldiers.

This has been a great experience for my students and me! We’ve come up with a plan, set a goal, and seen it through! The students get so excited every time a stack of card or cans of pennies arrive. Thanks Classroom Champions for the experience. We are looking forward to continuing our support of our community by beginning the tab drive for the Ronald McDonald House at the beginning of the year.