January 28, 2016
Each year, students in Lower School participate in various community service projects. One longstanding project at MPA is the Birthday Box program. This program provides a box of birthday essentials for children in less fortunate situations who are celebrating birthdays. Each gift box is packed with a cake mix, frosting, candles, book, small toy, and a handmade birthday card by one of our students. This year, first and second grade students directed this activity as part of the CHAMP program (Character Happens At Mounds Park). During the week of January 11 – 15, all students in the Lower School were asked to bring in spare change to contribute to the purchase of items for the boxes. Each day that week, students collected money in their homerooms and second graders counted this change. To help make this even more meaningful, we asked that the students work to earn their contribution by doing extra chores and helping at home. Through these efforts we hoped to help students realize that even one person can make a big difference. Our goal was to raise enough funds to fill 32 boxes, each box costing about $10.00. Every day second graders gave a lunchtime report on our progress. We were touched and amazed as our amounts grew each day giving us an ending total of $925! We more than doubled our goal!
On Wednesday, January 20, the Lower School came together in our CHAMP assembly to work on boxes. Students worked in mixed-grade level groups to decorate the boxes and make cards. Boxes will be packed with purchased items and sent to various food shelves in the area.
The character focus throughout every step of the Birthday Box project was compassion. It provided the setting for faculty to point out how successfully, and how fun, it could be to work together towards a common goal of showing compassion for others. Each child made a difference on their own and yet the whole group accomplished so much more by working together.
Thank you to all of the students and families that helped make our Birthday Box project such a huge success!
Anne Scalia and Mary Beggin (Grade 2)
Kari O’Keefe and Scott Wilson (Grade 1)
