Stephanie Higley, a 7th grade reading teacher in my department, and I started a competition between our two classes to see who could bring in the most items for Winter Wishes. The surplus canned goods would be delivered to the City Rescue Mission in downtown OKC on Monday, December 20th. Students who donated had their names put in a drawing. From that drawing, names would be selected to deliver the canned goods with us.
By the end of the first week, my students had 294 cans. She had about the same, maybe 50 behind us. We thought we could get our students to bring in more if we beefed up the competition. So candy was on the line. The agreement was the losing teacher would buy candy for each of the winning teacher's students. Stephanie has 130 students. I have 120 students. That's a lot of candy! Boy, do our kids like to compete! By the end of the second week, my students were winning by 200 cans. My students' canned goods count was in the 600's. Stephanie thought she was still in it. (I like her spirit.) So we decided to extend the deadline to Monday since that was the day we were delivering cans to the City Rescue Mission.
Thursday prior to the delivery, we drew names. Seven of my students were selected to attend. The two students who I had mentioned in the first blog, 'In the Spirit', were selected as well as another student who brought in 90 cans by herself! In total my students collected 653 canned food items. Needless to say, my students got candy! (But so did Stephanie's. Her 7th graders had such good hearts that I wanted to reward them anyway.) With Stephanie's collection, we had a total of 1,266 food items to donate! Stephanie and I each took 50 items from our collections to donate to our West families for Winter Wishes. The rest was delivered to the Mission.
We took a team of 16 kids and our head principal to deliver the goods. It was quite a sight to see when we pulled up in front of the Mission. Two trucks with the back ends filled with cans and tons of kids piling out. We immediately had homeless people walking up to us asking for handouts. It took your breath away to see a lot of people in need just sitting outside the Mission. We began to unload the items with help of several men who worked for the Mission through the BLT, Bridge to Life program which helps homeless people get a fresh start. Through this program, they learn basic skills most people learn as children like responsibility, punctuality and anger management. It was incredible to watch my students jump right in and help deliver these donations alongside people different from them. The courtesy and care my students modeled was a blessing to watch. The director of Food and Services came out to talk to us. He thanked us for the donation and told us a little bit about the program. There are approximately 3,000 homeless people in OKC. The Mission serves about 1,000 meals a day and offers 400+ of their 600 beds a night unless it is bad weather than they are at capacity with people on the floor. There are 70 kids who call the Mission home. The school bus comes every day to take them to school. This information was eye-opening for all of us. We plan to collect other goods once school is back in this coming semester - Pampers and Pencils. The Mission needs diapers and school supplies for those 70 kids. If you feel called to give, let me know!
This is one of my most favorite teaching memories. I'm blessed this year with great class of kids.
