For many students, a fun recess includes climbing playground equipment or playing on the swings, but when Rowan Walz’s fourth grade class was putting together donation boxes, he wanted to stay in and help.
This project involved collecting items for The Run the Race Center, one of many service efforts St. Andrew School completes during the school year. Though each project varies by grade level, all students learn lessons that are not only helpful in the classroom, but later in life as well.
Finding the right fit
Cassandra Thompson has been teaching fourth grade at St. Andrew for almost 16 years and says service learning has been an integral part of the curriculum for years.
One of the biggest projects was started by a now-retired teacher who discovered Operation Christmas Child. This charity collects shoe boxes full of gifts to ship all over the world.
“Maybe 12 years ago, we started with Operation Christmas Child, but we just recently discovered that The Run the Race Center was in need of similar Christmas gifts,” Thompson says. “And it was nice because it was a local organization so we can make a difference in our Columbus community.”
Thompson says her class now leads the project by collecting items – including accessories, treats and school supplies – from students throughout St. Andrew. These items in turn fill shoe boxes that are given to kids 5 to 15 years old.
Lessons beyond the classroom
There are countless lessons Thompson says her students learn throughout the project, one of the biggest of which being the impact they can have on others. One such lesson is from The Run the Race founder Rachel Muha, whose son was killed in 1999 at just 18 years old.
“We go into the backstory of Mrs. Muha and how she lost her son. And how she turned that into an opportunity to show not only forgiveness but to make it be a change in the community,” Thompson says. “So it’s very eye-opening for them.”
Outside of the life lessons, they also practice math by creating bar graphs to count the boxes, creativity by making posters to put up around the school and writing by crafting letters to include in the boxes.
Bigger impact
While the students enjoy bringing joy to others, their parents and teachers are excited to see how they grow and change throughout the process.
Rowan’s mom, Dawn Walz, helped Rowan drop off some of the boxes after seeing how invested he became.
“I really saw him getting excited about how many boxes they packed or how full the room was getting,” Dawn Walz says. “And I felt like to fully understand what they were doing and the giving process, it was nice to see the receiving end of things.”
Now a sixth grader looking back, Rowan is looking forward to taking on new service-learning projects and hopes the new students in Thompson’s class have as much fun as he did.
Rachel Karas is an editor at CityScene Media Group. Feedback welcome at rkaras@cityscenemediagroup.com.
