Student Contributor -J. Sansbury
I had my 5th-grade resource group hand out the bite2go bags to different classrooms to get involved with the volunteer practice. The school counselor usually does it all by himself, so it also helped him with the large demand for bite2go weekend kits.
The students were given a short lesson on the history and need for the bite2go program, as well as how much of the student body uses these weekend meal kits. On a separate day, students helped distribute the bags to different classrooms. There were around 8-12 bags for each class that students had to carry across the school. The students were excited to do something more active with their class time. Two of the students who usually are very reserved were smiling the whole time and were on top of following directions. We reflected at the end of our 30-minute pullout time and the students felt grateful for the experiences and I found out that others in our group get weekend kits themselves. The students were interested in the full process because they previously hadn’t thought about the work that goes into the bags and the work their school counselor does to hand all of them out every week. The younger grades were also happy to see older students delivering their bags, which was a highlight. This is a quick project since the bags are premade, but students will be interested in becoming a part of the volunteer process however small their part is. One of the students even suggested that they should start a club to do it every week.
If this project were done with a class that wasn't in the resource room, I would make the lesson longer and make sure that each group has a staff member to lead their group since students will be going to different classes to deliver the bags. Since our group was five students, it was manageable with three adults. But larger classes would require more planning.
