Civic Engagement Clearinghouse
Eastern Washington University
Nollmeyer, Gustave 
Blessings in a Backpack mobilizes communities, individuals and resources to provide food on the weekends for elementary school children across America who might otherwise go hungry. They reach out to over 100+ organizations that are willing to contribute to feeding local families all around America.
This projects is designed to get the students involved with the community around where they live. The City of Cheney has groups of people go around the area collect garbage and recyclables off of the streets. The idea is to get the students to take pride in their community and help make it clean. This leads us to the idea of how we can help keep community around us clean as well.
This project encourages students to look at global issues of poverty and hunger. Heifer allows people to make donations (or a share of a donation) to buy animals/baskets/water/etc. for third-world families in need. The students work together to raise money for this donation by doing chores at home or even mowing lawns for relatives/neighbors (with permission!).
My students made home-made dog treats to donate to S.C.R.A.P.S. In this process, they got to be creative and make their dog treat in any shape they wanted to. They were so excited to learn that they were making a difference.
This project is designed to get the students to learn about recycling, why we do it, and how we can implement it in our school/organization. I partnered up with one of the Spokane community centers ran by CCS called the North East Community Center. We started the project by reading a few mentor texts about recycling and the different ways we can do it. After this we created our own recycling bins for paper and cans.
My Kindergarten students will raise money and work with various peers and Blessings in a Backpack to provide well-balanced meals to students on the weekends so that they don’t go hungry. The students will have the choice of which location(s) they want to send their donations to make the project a bit more personal for each of the students. After the donations have been made, students can begin volunteering their time to possibly raise more and learn more about the organizations from those who run it.
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