Each quarter, our entire Upper School (7th - 12th grades) does a "Community Outreach Day" where we divide up into teams and head out into the community to serve. It's a great experience for our students and is a way for us to witness through actions and not just words. This quarter we split the students up by grade level and sent them to 5 different locations including a Donkey Rescue Farm, Buckner Shoes for Orphan Souls, Mi Escuelita Preschool, Habitat for Humanity and a local elementary school.
I went with our Junior High students to Press Elementary where the students worked in classrooms, did lots of cutting/laminating/prepping, read to students and helped the staff prepare for that evenings Fall Festival. I ended up working with a group of 4 girls to create a "photo setting" where families who attended the festival could sit and have their pictures taken. The girls were AWESOME and we were able to make something pretty cute in a short amount of time (and with limited resources).
This is me and a couple of my fellow teachers :) 
Amanda (the JH English teacher) and I pose with the final product.
The other big part of our day was taking Operation Christmas Child to the school. A local church had already collected several hundred shoe boxes filled with presents to be donated to Operation Christmas Child, and we took the boxes, emptied them out and then repacked them with the 4th grade students and got to share with them what it feels like to be able to give to someone else (a lot of these students come from situations where they aren't able to give to people who are less fortunate than them and so it's a cool experience for them to have).
Community Outreach Days are pretty exhausting (hahaha), but are such a worthwhile experience for our students - can't wait 'til the next one! :)
Amanda (the JH English teacher) and I pose with the final product.
The other big part of our day was taking Operation Christmas Child to the school. A local church had already collected several hundred shoe boxes filled with presents to be donated to Operation Christmas Child, and we took the boxes, emptied them out and then repacked them with the 4th grade students and got to share with them what it feels like to be able to give to someone else (a lot of these students come from situations where they aren't able to give to people who are less fortunate than them and so it's a cool experience for them to have).Community Outreach Days are pretty exhausting (hahaha), but are such a worthwhile experience for our students - can't wait 'til the next one! :)
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