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Learning to Serve Others Additional
Links: Washing grapes at the soup kitchen in a colander almost as big as they are.
But how many of these classes take their students to the soup kitchen as part of the learning experience? Or involve them in providing farm animals to families in the third world?
At CCES, service learning, an international focus on hunger around the world, off-campus activities, and active engagement in both local and global charities are all integral to our fifth-graders’ health studies. Reading, social studies, writing, science, and math all come into play, too, stretching their learning well beyond the boundaries of the food pyramid.
According to Service Learning Director Elizabeth Jarrett, “Our goal is to teach our fifth-graders about the advantages of a community taking responsibility and working together to improve health and hunger issues.”
The unit began with a talk by Sally Green from the Project Host Soup Kitchen about the history of the program and the people it serves right here in our community.
Every week Mrs. Jarrett takes groups of seven fifth-graders at a time to Project Host. There they help to prepare and serve what may be the only nutritiously well-balanced meal many of the kitchen’s clients will eat that day. Beginning at 8:30 a.m., the students don aprons and disposable gloves to wash produce, slice bread, open cans, prepare casseroles, make sandwiches, wash dishes, and work in the storage room. Then they help to serve the meal. Before leaving at 12:30 p.m. to return to their classes, the students also participate in the cleanup process. Through this experience they learn firsthand how many people are helped daily by volunteers who care about the needy in our community.
As they turn their focus to global hunger, the students will see a video entitled The Day Papa Came Home about the health issues arising from the poverty of a village in Ecuador and will participate in the Read to Feed program sponsored by Heifer International. The program’s appealing website at www.readtofeed.org uses the inspiring tagline “children changing the world.” Through it students raise money by signing up sponsors who contribute money for each book the child reads—a “win-win” situation since students may read any books they choose. The money raised will allow student advisee groups to “buy” livestock for a struggling family somewhere in another part of the world. This program helps to sustain families by giving them more than a meal: it gives them a means to feed their families long-term. The website also allows students to explore projects and initiatives for alleviating hunger around the world.
So when your fifth-grader comes home and tells you she is learning about “nutrition,” don’t just ask her whether it would be better to have french fries or broccoli with dinner. Ask her what she did today to alleviate hunger in Greenville and around the world.
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