As part of their character development program, each month local public schools celebrate specific values. The program focuses on 10 positive character attributes that encourage everyone to work together to create a community of caring citizens. The objective is to build compassionate citizens to build strong communities. It fosters respect for the dignity and humanity of all individuals and groups, and is a deliberate, day-to-day effort to nurture universal qualities that are considered important within our local and global communities. These qualities form the basis of our relationships with one another, and of responsible citizenship.
Research indicates that there are many benefits from schools nurturing these attributes, including developing respect for self and others, developing responsible citizen-ship, improving relationships, fostering a positive school culture, higher academic achievement and self-discipline, among others.
In February, kindness was the attribute in focus. To reinforce this concept, Kindergarten teacher Melanie Martin launched a competition to collect non-perishable food items for Millbrook Foodshare. She set a target of 100 items to coincide with the 100th day of the school year.
As the program began, donations trickled in, but not at the pace Martin was hoping to see. By Tuesday, she took action, announcing a competition between classes at the school: the class with the highest number of items donated would win a 2.5 kg bag of candy. The gloves were off and donations rolled in.
At the final tally, the school collected 842 items. Wilma Armstrong and Tracy Parker’s kindergarten class collected 104 of these, earning the prize.
Meanwhile, the recipient was very grateful for the generous donation. Millbrook Foodshare Director Lori Lazaros Beeby expressed the organization’s gratitude with a post reading “A big Thank you to all the children, families and staff of Millbrook South Cavan Public School …. for organizing a fundraiser for Millbrook and District Foodshare! Together you collected over 800 food items! Such an amazing job done by all! We appreciate your ongoing support and kindness!” Well done, MSC.