Feed Your Neighbors

This project started as a simple assessment of interviewing skills.  Kindergarten through 6th-grade students invited a representative from a local food pantry to speak to them.  They prepared questions for the meeting and reviewed active listening.  But as the speaker explained that many people in the community were hungry and described the pantry's efforts to alleviate this problem, the students were moved to organize a food drive.

The youths prepared for their work by researching issues of hunger, homelessness, and poverty, learning the history of their community, and understanding citizenship as it relates to their role in helping the community.  They learned about healthy foods and the affects of hunger on the body. 

The students then translated their knowledge into colorful flyers and a letter explaining their food drive.  Working in small groups, they studied a map of the neighborhood and plotted a course to distribute the information to households near their school.  On collection day, they returned to these houses and picked up donated food.  They used math skills to count, sort, weigh, compare, and chart the items.

Working together to solve problems and make decisions, the students successfully contributed to their community.  They connected local concerns with global issues, gaining an awareness of others that would serve them even years later as they transitioned out of school and into the adult world.

Adapted from "Route to Reform: K-8 service-learning Curriculum Ideas," © 1994-95 National Youth Leadership Council.