Kids Who Care

Spotlight on:

Little Egg Harbor Intermediate School
Little Egg Harbor, NJ

Grades 3—6

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Little Egg Harbor Intermediate School students care about:

Helping those less fortunate and
inspiring others to join the effort

Little Egg Harbor Intermediate School recognizes the value of inspiring its young students to become activist in the war against poverty by approaching that issue through service-learning projects in two different ways. In the first unit, “Roaming Readers,” sixth-grade students inspired a kindergartner class to become aware of the plight of the less fortunate by reading to them Uncle William’s Soup Kitchen, a story specifically dealing with a family in need and the importance of helping them. In the sixth-grade discussion with the little ones, the kindergartners showed they understood the concept: “We need to help people who need food,” and “I’m going to save things for them.” The sixth-graders also expressed what they had gained;

 

Zoe added how “amazed” she was to find that the little ones “had ideas on how to help the homeless.”

But inspiring others to help was not enough for Little Egg Harbor Intermediate students; they also participated in the action itself. To make the annual collection for the local Food Pantry more meaningful, “Spearheading a School-wide Food Pantry Drive” was launched in which students first received lessons on nutrition and civic engagement. The sixth-grade students then created a video that was aired during morning/afternoon announcements to start the campaign and encourage their peers to make donations to the project. Over the course of four weeks, the students through publicity and announcements continued to spur contributions. At the end of the drive, a group of students took the collections to the food pantry personally, seeing first-hand what they accomplished and where the donated items were distributed.

The structured approach to the annual drive produced many positive results. Not only did the number of cans donated greatly increase, but also the students took personal ownership and pride in the drive. Many sixth graders agreed that this approach made helping the poor much more meaningful since they actually connected the drive to what they were studying in class and to the people who would benefit. Guidance counselor Mary Bonanno said that Little Egg Harbor’s first ventures in service-learning were “overwhelming successes” that motivated the school to now design and implement service projects “in a totally different way.”

 

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Get these lesson plans:

• “Roaming Readers”
  
  Core Ethical Values addressed: Empathy, Responsibility, Teamwork, Compassion
  
  Curriculum Connections:  Visual Arts; Language Arts; Social Studies
  
  
• “Spearheading a School-wide Food Pantry Drive”
  
  Core Ethical Values addressed:  Empathy, Responsibility, Teamwork, Citizenship
  
  Curriculum Connections:  Health Ed.; Language Arts; Social Studies