Apartment buildings? We’ll go door to door in the entire building. Dance studios? We’ll ask everyone who goes there.
There are 34 third graders. If each of them looked in their homes and brought in one pair of shoes we would have been able to donate 34 pairs of shoes to Souls4Souls. Thirty-four shoes would have made a difference in a few people’s lives. However, these third graders decided to make as big of a difference as possible. Not only did they scour their own houses, they went out into their communities and collected over 700 pairs of shoes!
Each month “Third Graders Make a Difference” by taking on a new project to see how much difference they can make. September’s project was to collect shoes for Souls4Souls, an organization that collects and donates shoes to people around the world. We came together as a grade to “kick-off” this month’s theme. The students were empowered to find creative ways, such as going to their neighbors’ houses, to get as many shoes donated as possible. This project came on the “heels” of the summer Call to Action in which the Lower School community was asked to donate gently-used Halloween costumes. These costumes were donated to the Bergen Family Center. Thanks to the generosity of the lower school, we collected over 10 full bags of costumes and accessories.
October ushers in two new projects for the full Lower School community. We can use your help! The first is to bring in Box Tops for Education. These can be dropped off in a bin right outside the third-grade classrooms and will be collected through the end of the school year. The money raised from these Box Tops (10 cents for each Box Top) will be given to the St. Joseph’s School for the Blind.
The second project is one that was created by a former third grader! Around this time last year, this student realized he would have a lot of extra Halloween candy, and did not want it to go to waste. Determination and perseverance led to the creation of the second project. We are asking the entire Dwight-Englewood community (Lower, Middle and Upper School) to bring in candy for our Halloween Collection from November 1st through November 6th. This candy will then be sent to Soldiers’ Angels, an organization that collects and sends candy to American troops deployed around the world, and to veterans in VA hospitals. Thank you in advance for donating helping us make a BIG difference!
