Saturday, November 19, 2011

Saturday Snapshot - Community Thanksgiving

Saturday Snapshot is hosted by Alyce @ At Home with Books

I challenged my Comp I students with a Thanksgiving Community Service project.  Although we are all thrilled to be home and with family for 9 whole days off from school, there are a lot of families who don't have that luxury.  There are also a lot of school children who will be off from school like us for the next 9 days but will NOT have enough to eat.  The 2 hot meals they eat each day at school won't be available to them over the break.  
I told my students that I would give them 5 bonus points for 5 cans of food or other non-perishable items.  
They went crazy.
Most brought more than 5 items even though they knew they would only receive 5 bonus points.  Others specifically picked out "kid" food such as Cinderella and SpongeBob chicken noodle soup, ChefBoyDee ravioli, etc.  



I wanted to cry on Friday, which was the deadline.  It took 10 of my students from my last period class to load my car. 



My daughters and I packed the shelves of the church food pantry this morning.  Please notice that the cans go all the way to the wall and are stacked as high as they can go.  My church opens the pantry to those in need 12 months out of the year...November and December are the hardest hit months.



Several people at the church this morning said they couldn't remember a food pantry haul this large...ever...
I'm officially making this an annual Community Service project for my students.
I love my students...they make everything else about my job worthwhile.

15 comments:

  1. That's wonderful - brought a tear to my eye!

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  2. That's a wonderful project. So often we forget that there are people who go day to day worrying about where their next meal will be coming from.

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  3. As a fellow teacher, I could not agree with your last sentence any more.

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  4. That made me teary-eyed. If only everyone would do what they could to help others in need. Bravo!

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  5. How awesome that your students gave so much!! Our church has a food pantry and also cooks meals for the needy once a week, so I know how much their donations were appreciated!

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  6. So wonderful that your students participated to such a level.

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  7. Well done by you and your students'1

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  8. How wonderful! I bet everyone felt good about this afterwards.

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  9. I love the way your students rose to the challenge! What a great way to serve the community!

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  10. what a fantastic project for your students and one in which they can really make a tremendous difference for others ~ thank you for sharing

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  11. This is a great idea. Reading your profile, I feel like some parts of our lives are parallel -- teach English at a community college, I have a sophomore in college and a high school senior along with a high school sophomore. I give my students extra credit for voting, but I hadn't thought about asking them to donate to the local food pantry. This is a great idea especially for the end of the quarter when so many college students throw out food before going home. I'll try this the week before finals.

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  12. All that food will be a blessing for people in need. Bless your students for pitching in.
    Our church has surpassed its goal for this year in contributions to the area food bank and so we have increased the amount we want to reach until the end of the year.

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  13. Wonderful generosity on the part of your students (and yay for you, for thinking of the idea!). We learned that food pantries in our area have had to turn away people because the shelves haven't been stocked as full as usual (and because a higher number of people are visiting the pantries for staples).

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  14. Amazing! This is what Thanksgiving is all about.

    Have a wonderful holiday.

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  15. I've had a wonderful day today, and this was the icing on the cake. I'm so glad you shared this with us!

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