We spent the first half of the year being inspired by people like Ghandi, Wangari, and Malala, and their stories of how they made the world a better place. We listened to their stories. We also invited local activists who saw and responded to a need in our Syracuse Community. We met with inspirational people like Al Amin Muhammad, Clifford Ryan, Adam Sudmann, Dick Ford and Dan Stricker who came to share their stories at our school.
Inspired by the cumulative effort of all these people, we started brainstorming what we could do as a school to improve our community. Our list was huge! Our students had concerns about the environment, global warming, literacy, art, the homeless, refugees, and animals. Under each category we listed between 5-10 creative ideas! Slowly we narrowed it down. That was the hard part. We held two rounds of voting and after the final votes were counted we had successfully identified three different projects.
- Environment/Animals
To restore our garden that was started a number of years ago. Our vision is to plant native plants and to provide a haven for animals and humans alike. Included in this effort was to reduce waste in our school by starting a compost, and reducing plastic. We talked about trying to become plastic free?
- Literacy
To build a Free Library to be placed in an area where there isn’t a library close by. We will design and build our library and stock it with books from home and school.
- Homeless
To create gift bags containing personal items to give to people who are homeless. We hope to work with If We Eat, They Eat.
Then our students had to decide which project they wanted to work on. This important work has begun. Stay tuned!
