We Scare Hunger

This time of year things can sometimes get difficult for teachers. We are eight or nine weeks into the school year, midterms are fast approaching, students and teachers are both getting tired and worn out, and frustration can sometimes run high. It’s times like these when a student “win” needs to be celebrated and we as teachers need to “catch” students doing things right.

Today I was able to celebrate a huge win with my students. One of the extracurricular events I supervise at my school is our Me to We team which is aimed at empowering youth to make a positive change in their local and global communities through service projects. You can read all about the amazing experience that was WE DAY for our team in this blog post.

As one of our local service projects we chose to participate in a food drive during the month of October and collect non-perishable food items for the local foodbank. Our school is small with only 100 students. As such, we set a modest goal of collecting 200 pounds of food for the foodbank. That’s two pounds of food per student. We thought it was a good goal and one that would help a lot of people in our community. I’m so proud to say that our students not only reached their goal of 200 pounds of food, but they smashed it! In total, they raised over 650 pounds of food!

Cue the proud teacher moment!

So even though it is easy to feel overwhelmed as an educator at this time of year, and I’m not up to date with my marking, and the students seem to be coping more and more attitude in classes, and midterm reports are looming ahead of me, I’m taking a moment to celebrate my student’s amazing accomplishment and be proud of their hard work.

When I think of the sheer number of families these donations might help in a time of need, the other hectic, stressful stuff going on right now seems less important. Together we set a goal and by working together, we met it. Hopefully they learned a little something about helping others along the way…

Together we are changing the world one can of food at a time. I’m excited about our next world changing initiative and to celebrating more of my students’ successes both inside and outside of the classroom.

Onward and upwards to face the next challenge!