Hawley School Students Raise $11,000 With ‘Read To Feed’

By Martha Coville

On Monday, November 19, Hawley School announced the end of its monthlong “Read To Feed” initiative at a schoolwide assembly. The students had raised so much money that the final count was not available until later in the day. Resource Room teacher Mary Walsh, who helped organized the program, said she would have been “very happy” with a grand total of $5,000. But Hawley students more than doubled that goal: in the end, they raised $11,652 for Heifer International, an organization dedicated to bring lasting change to developing countries around the world.

Language arts consultant Karen Stewart presented an oversized cardboard check to Georgia Carington, who accepted it on behalf on Heifer International. Ms Carington said, “The most fun I have at Heifer is to come to schools like this.” She continued, “I’ve been to churches, I’ve been to schools, [but] I’ve never received a check like this.” Clearly elated, Principal Jo-Ann Peters cried out, “We are terrific!” amid general applause.

“Read To Feed” is a popular program sponsored by Heifer International. Teachers and schools across the country have worked it into their curriculums. Hawley School teachers chose the motto, “Reading To Feed Our Minds While Helping To End World Hunger,” for the monthlong program. The school’s literacy team, including Ms Stewart, pitched the program to the school’s PTA. Traditionally active in Hawley School’s literacy programs, the PTA agreed to donate books for “Read To Feed.” Each classroom at Hawley received enough books for every student to check out a new book every night for a month.

Then they asked their parents and neighbors to sponsor their reading. Students decided for themselves whether to raise money per book read, or per unit of time (10 or 20 minutes) spent reading. In their classrooms, they made beautiful banners to use as rubrics. Heifer International sent stickers with pictures of animals, and the students carefully added them one by one as they raised more money. Ms Walsh said the banners, hung in the hallways, encouraged “friendly competition” among classrooms and across grade levels.

The Heifer Philosophy

Heifer International aims to foster change across the globe by empowering families and communities to work together to alleviate local poverty. By focusing on developing self-reliance among underprivileged communities, rather than short-term relief, Heifer hopes to affect lasting change.

As it name implies, Heifer International considers the acquisition of livestock essential to helping families escape poverty. They donate 15 different kinds of livestock to families in 128 different countries. Families use the animals like oxen and water buffalo for draft animals; they shear alpacas, angora rabbits, and sheep to sell their wool; and they drink and sell milk and eggs from cattle and poultry. Even a smaller animal, like a diary goat, can provide a family with several quarts of milk a day, which number adds up to a ton of milk a year.

Education is also important to the Heifer philosophy. Veterinarians teach recipients proper care of every gifted animal. Other professionals work them to develop environmentally sustainable approaches to agriculture and animal husbandry.

But the most important part of Heifer International is the idea of “passing on the gift.” A heifer is a young cow pregnant with her first calf. Families who receive livestock from Heifer must agree to give the animals’ first offspring to another local family. In turn, second family gifts their animals first offspring to another family, and so on. Through Heifer, a whole community can benefit from a single donation. Ms Carington, the volunteer representing Heifer at Hawley School’s assembly, said, “The idea that a family that has not even been able to feed itself can work up to giving a calf or a goat to another family” is incredibly empowering. Through Heifer, local families themselves become the agents of change in their own communities.

 The ‘Read To Feed’ Curriculum

Ms Stewart, the Hawley School language arts teacher, worked the “Read To Feed” program into the state curriculum’s science requirements, by selecting books on health and nutrition. Following Heifer International’s emphasis on globalization, she also chose books promoting multicultural awareness.

For example, all students read Beatrice’s Goat, a true story about a Ugandan girl named Beatrice. When her family of seven receives a goat from Heifer International, Beatrice’s mother charges her with caring for it. The beautifully illustrated book takes readers through Beatrice’s daily life. It details the farm chores she helps her mother with; explains what subsistence farmers in Uganda eat, and how they get their food; and finally, because Beatrice wants nothing more than to go to school, it also introduces American students to the reality that, in many countries, education is neither free nor compulsory.

What is most exciting about the “Read To Feed” program is that enriches the minds of both the children who give and the children who receive. Through “Read To Feed,” American children, often ignorant of the sources of their own food, learn about nutrition and agriculture around the globe. And because of “Read To Feed,” families who receive livestock are often able to send their own children to school for the first time. Heifer International therefore raises communities up from poverty in two ways. The livestock they gift eventually enriches entire communities, and the education they enable children to receive creates new opportunities for an entire generation.

 

Hawley School Celebrates Its Students’ Achievement

Ms Walsh, one of the teachers who helped bring the program to Hawley School, had hoped to raise $5,000 to purchase what Heifer International calls an “Ark.” As the biblical reference suggests, an ark is a gift of a pair of each of the 15 animals Heifer provides to needy families. The sum of $11,652 means that Hawley School will be able to donate two arks, or a total of 60 animals, plus some others. Students are filling out surveys to decide which other animals to purchase for Heifer International.

Students from kindergarten, first, second, third, and fourth grades all spoke at the November 19 assembly. First grader Eirenie Athansoulis explained that she and Beatrice, the Ugandan girl from Beatrice’s Goat, are different because, “Beatrice gets food from her farm [but] I get food from Big Y.” She added, “Beatrice gets water from the lake. I get water from the well.” But she also said, “Beatrice and I are alike because we both like bananas.”

Students also watched a short video about Heifer on the projection screen, and the pictures of animals like llamas and water buffalo drew giggles from the elementary school children. Then, they lined up across the stage, proudly holding up their homemade rubrics. Meticulously glued stickers lined up neatly to display each grade’s contribution. The banners were long enough to require several students to hold them up, and nearly as tall as the younger students. Ms Stewart presented the oversized check to Ms Carington, and the students reflected on Thanksgiving as an appropriate time for giving. Students in the audience announced that they were thankful for their friends, their pets, and the homes they live in. Having learned through “Read To Feed” that many children around the world work hard to help their families produce enough food, one student announced he was thankful for “The Big Y.”

To donate to Heifer International, visit www.heifer.org.