Student Contributor -E. Grant
The project is a supply drive for local Refugees by donating house/school supplies and items to be donated to the World Relief organization. The project starts with a short lesson on who refugees are and what persecution is then goes into how the World Relief Organization can help by collecting resources and items for Refugees in Spokane.
The students brought lightly used items from home and even a couple students brought brand new items that they didn’t need or didn’t fit. They were really considerate about asking what items were needed most and would be the most beneficial as well as asking if they could continue to bring stuff the weeks following the first collection of supplies. Many of the students in this particular classroom were refugees themselves or had family members that were refugees and that made the project even more relevant and close to home for the students. During this project I learned how Spokane is a hub for refugees and just how powerful this project was not only for our community but for the students at this school as well.
I think that the lesson on refugees and persecution went well and that the students were curious and asked good clarifying questions that showed they cared about the project. I suggest doing a good amount of research before the project because this helped me with answering the many questions the students had as well as filling in some of my own knowledge gaps in the subject as well. I also had to modify some of my instructions to make sure to include to the students that it was important they brought lightly used items and not anything that was too worn down. This was because I forgot to mention this at first and the teacher had to reiterate it, so it’s important to bring that up since many kids will just want to bring as much as they can to help.
