Summer School Students Make an Impact with Civic Readiness Projects
HW Smith students in Raylinn Minghillo’s class raised more than $135 for The Water Project; Bellevue students in Elizabeth Carbone’s class collected cat food and toys for Wayward Paws, Inc.; Bellevue students in Amber Tolone’s class made a donation to In My Father's Kitchen; McKinley-Brighton students in Teresa Zollo and Maggie Tabor’s classes sold snacks to honor fallen police officers.Through bottle and can collections and other fundraising efforts, students and staff throughout the Syracuse City School District worked together this summer to make a positive impact in the community.
Through iCivics, a digital civics library and curriculum founded by Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, students engaged in activities that taught reading through the lens of civics.
In kindergarten through 5th grade, students learned 21st Century civics skills including solving problems together, making decisions, and more. They learned about elections, voting, global citizenship, the Constitution, media and the sharing of information, and other important topics. At the middle school level, students studied these topics more in-depth.
“My students collected change, bottles and cans, and took online donations to support The Water Project” Ms. Minghillo shared. “They were working hard and learning that, even as kids, they can make a difference!”
Bellevue students in Ms. Carbone’s class learned vocabulary words like charity, fundraiser, flyer, and organize.
“We’re organizing a fundraiser to help kittens and cats,” Amollia Messier, an incoming 3rd grader who normally attends school at Meachem, shared. “It feels good to be able to help them. I always like to help people!”
“We made flyers asking people to donate things that we printed to hang around the school!” Isaac Fair added.
Students were excited to learn that they would get to meet with a representative from the shelter where they were donating – and especially that they would get to enjoy a visit with some of the kittens the group will help with the donations they received.
Classmates in Ms. Tolone’s room talked about creative ways communities can help each other.
“We talked about different ways we could help our community, and we decided to do something for the homeless,” she shared. “I am Facebook friends with John Tumino, who runs In My Father's Kitchen. They are a local organization that does so much for our homeless – including getting them back on their feet, bringing a doctor to them, providing food, and hiring them for jobs so they can earn money.”
Students took their civics lessons even further by using the experience to practice their math: they used their collection as an opportunity to create a bar chart so they could track the amount they raised each week!
“It makes me feel great to help people,” Shacoya Ricks, an incoming 4th grader at Meachem, shared. “We came up with the name ‘Helper Bees’ for our collection, since we’re doing summer school here at Bellevue where their mascot is a bee. We learned that you don’t even have to give anything to help… we can help every day just by being kind.”
We’re so proud of the ways #SCSDGivesBack, including all of these wonderful contributions that our schools made to the greater Syracuse community and beyond this summer!
