Students Help by "Filling Empty Bowls"
“Ask any 4th grader at Villa Academy to explain what impact Food Lifeline has on combating hunger in Western Washington and you will get a multitude of answers. Villa’s 4th grade class’ yearlong service-learning project and partnership with Food Lifeline has made learning about hunger a hands-on learning experience,” says Jennifer Cassarino, a 4th grade teacher at Villa Academy.
Villa Academy thoroughly engages students in each lesson, especially when teaching its 4th graders about hunger. Cassarino shares about what these lessons entail and the impact they have on the students, as well as in the lives of the people we serve at Food Lifeline. Villa Academy has been supporting Food Lifeline since 2005.
All year, the students have volunteered by packing food, studying about local and world hunger, written, performed, created, planned and ran an Empty Bowls soup dinner, raising over $1,000 for Food Lifeline. The dinner, including a short program and beautiful handmade clay bowls for families, was the final project culminating all the students’ efforts and learning throughout the school year.
During the 4th graders’ first visits to Food Lifeline, they were interested and surprised to learn that not just the homeless in our community use food banks, but that senior citizens and working people who just don’t have enough to pay for food need food banks, too. The students wanted to do all they could to help out and couldn’t wait to roll up their sleeves and get to work packing frozen vegetables, organizing a food drive and raising money selling tickets for their soup dinner.
It’s just like what Mother Cabrini, Villa’s founder, did. She helped people out in her community and so can we! Mother Cabrini would certainly be proud of these 4th graders. The students are embracing the tradition of reaching out to the community and making a difference by helping others.
Our 4th grade soup dinner raises awareness about hunger in our community and we learn about world hunger. We donate the proceeds to Food Lifeline who uses 96 cents for every dollar they earn to feed the hungry in Western Washington.”