Introducing Room 209 C.A.R.E.S.

February 9, 2012 | Posted in: Class Updates

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Valentine’s Day is coming up (more on that in an upcoming post) and we’re celebrating by kicking off the fourth year of our Room 209 C.A.R.E.S. campaign.  C.A.R.E.S. stands for “Community Action Run by Eager Students” and is the element of our class that focuses on community service.  Our class has a long-standing partnership with Gifts of Love and works to support their efforts to help families in the Greater Hartford area with food, clothes, and household goods.  In 2011, 13,000 people went to Gifts of Love for help.  As a school, we support Gifts of Love throughout the year with collections (such as last week’s soup drive) and special activities (such as the gr. 3 community garden project).

As a class, our C.A.R.E.S. program has two main parts to support Gifts of Love.  Each week (normally), on Friday afternoon, I pull names from our Chance Box.  Kids earn Chance tickets by taking academic risks in class and by being leaders in our class community.  When I draw names, those students typically earn prizes, but they also have the opportunity to donate their prize (meaning I donate $1.00, the cost of a typical prize) to Gifts of Love.  This is a great way for kids to help others.  The other way our class helps Gifts of Love is through our redeemable can and bottle recycling program.  We collect soda cans and soda and water bottles and bring them to the supermarket to redeem for $0.05 each.  All proceeds go to Gifts of Love.  It sounds like it wouldn’t make much of a difference, but it’s amazing to see how quickly the money adds up!  This is a great program because kids and families can help Gifts of Love, but it doesn’t involve families sending in any money.

This morning, Diana Goode, the Executive Director of Gifts of Love visited our class to talk with the kids about her organization and how we can help.  The kids are very excited to support Gifts of Love, hence C.A.R.E.S. standing for “Community Action Run by EAGER Students.”  But here’s the catch… In the past, I took care of recycling the bottles and cans at the supermarket, but I can’t take that on right now.  (Isn’t it amazing how quickly spare time disappears when one becomes a parent?  Something you all know!)  I’m looking for volunteers to work together to coordinate this charitable effort.  I would recommend that we start with just our class, and then extend to all of gr. 4, and then the whole school (if appropriate).  The more parents we have helping, the more we can open the program up, and the more we can help Gifts of Love.  I’m open to different arrangements: In the past, we have had some arrangements where students sorted the cans and bottles during recess (on a VOLUNTARY basis) with parent volunteers and then parents took the bags to the supermarket.  Other parents prefer to take the unsorted cans and bottles themselves and to sort them while putting them in the redemption machines.  I’m open to any option and appreciate all offers of help.  This can be as frequent or as irregular as you want, but I do ask that we try to establish a regular schedule.  If you are willing and able to help, please email me.  We cannot do this without parent help!  Thanks for considering!  (Did you know that Gifts of Love is able to use their funds to purchase food at Foodshare for a tenth of what we pay at the supermarket?  When $1.00 buys $10.00 of food, it’s easy to see what a big difference 20 soda bottles can make!)