Barr Middle School National Junior Honor Society Leaders with 1,100 items of donated goods, (Grand Island Public Schools, Courtesy)
GRAND ISLAND — From the classroom to the community, for one middle school the month of November was all about making a difference.
For the second straight year, Barr Middle School hosted their annual “Be Thankful Challenge” — a week-long effort to keep thankfulness top-of-mind for students in school while also giving back to the Grand Island community.
“We just want to teach our students to be good citizens and to care about others.” Denise Pedersen, Barr Media Integration Specialist, said.
THE CONCEPT
Connecting thankfulness conversations held during daily Advisory Time to collecting 1,100 donated items for Hope Harbor.
Near the end of November, Barr students brought items to school each week to build towards a large goal. Each item matched a list of year-round needs published by Hope Harbor in Grand Island.
But before the community impact piece, it started in the classroom for Bulldog scholars.
THE CLASSROOM
Every day, Barr students have a half-hour dedicated time to connect with classmates in a classroom outside of typical instruction. The class is called Advisory Time (imagine a reinvented “home room” scenario).
Advisory time or affectionately called, “Bulldog Time”, is a dedicated half hour where students have opportunities to engage in discussion around personal relationships, social emotional well-being, and goals. The idea is to help students gain a stronger sense of belonging in school.
“Relationships; it’s as simple as that.” Jessa Yager, Social Studies Teacher & Advisory Time Coordinator at Barr, said, “The routine you’re providing inside the classroom of ‘hey, I greeted you at the door’. This is what we do every day that’s building that trust piece of a relationship. It’s also the component of just having conversations with students every day, as long as you are even a ‘hello’ or ‘how you doing?’, some type of interaction with a kid every single day, that’s relationship.”
Each month, “Bulldog Time” has its own theme — a common message or concept students revisit throughout the month to deepen understanding around topics like empathy. And at Barr, oftentimes the theme will carry a challenge of sorts to encourage students to make the concepts practical.
October’s theme was the “Kindness Challenge”.
And for November, the “Be Thankful Challenge” has been taken to a new level schoolwide.
THE CHALLENGE
Last school year, Barr staff saw an opportunity to help students see how intentional, small efforts can add-up to make a big difference.
The result was the “Barr Middle School Annual Be Thankful Challenge” — a student-led effort to collect over 1,000 donated items for Hope Harbor.
With the help of Mrs. Pedersen, Media Integration Specialist, and Ms. Bruns, National Junior Honor Society Sponsor, student leaders went to work empowering each grade, 6th, 7th, & 8th, to bring as many items as they could in November.
“It’s a time where we could, like, experience new things and help out more.” Vanessa, Barr 8th Grader & NJHS Leader, said, “Like volunteering. We are getting a lot more people into it, wanting to volunteer, and helping our community more.”
With the challenge issued, the 26 members of the Barr National Junior Honor Society (NJHS) went to work. Student leaders encouraged their classmates to bring goods to school. Each day during “Bulldog Time” the leaders would visit each classroom collecting the donated items and sorting them in a common space for all students to see.
“It really makes me happy; seeing how much people actually care, to bring stuff to Hope Harbor” Ashley, Barr 8th Grader & NJHS Leader, shared.
And rise to the “Thankful Challenge” they did.
After gathering approximately 1,100 items like pasta, canned veggies, fruit, and soup, dry foods, meal prep kits, and more, the Barr NJHS Leaders loaded all the goods in the back of Mrs. Pedersen’s truck to be delivered to Hope Harbor.
And it all started with intentional conversations in the classroom during “Bulldog Time”.
Learning, connections, and the power of thankfulness made practical have turned the fun idea into a cornerstone of school culture for students and staff. Reflecting on the effort, Mrs. Pedersen affirmed the schoolwide initiative.
“This is just another example of a team effort, to accomplish something for good, and also to help develop empathy.”
By: Mitchell Roush, Grand Island Public Schools
