With the start of the new school year, our giving project is kicking off a year long initiative. Change to change the world! Every day students are encouraged to dump unwanted pocket change into the jar in our room.
What will we do with the change? We are going to feed children in rural Nicaragua! What I love about this mission is that they began the meal packing initiative because teachers in Nicaragua expressed that student performance was hampered by extreme hunger. Without full bellies, the kids couldn’t focus in school! This outreach allows us to not only feed the kids but help them improve their education as well. Read more about the initiative and the organization here: http://nicefoundation.org/feeding-program/
When we have raised $3000, the foundation will come to our school and my students will get to pack 10,000 meals to be sent to Nicaragua! It is an amazing experience and I want to share what it looks like to get your students the hands-on ability to make a difference!
Step 1: Volunteers help the foundation set up the room where you’ll be packing!
Step 2: Additional volunteers (around 40-50 is perfect) arrive to begin the roughly 2 hour packing process. The ingredients are placed in containers and through a series of funnels, scoopers, and scales they are measured out into a chicken flavored, vitamin enriched soup mix.
Step 3: As the bags of mix fill up, they are packed into boxes and prepped for shipment to Nicaragua. Each bag serves 6 so 10,000 meals is NOT 10,000 bags! (If you’re lucky you’ll have enough volunteers that someone can cook up a sample of the soup for everyone to try. It is pretty good but hard to imagine eating it every day!)
If you’re interested in partnering with us, we could buy and pack even more meals! Any size donation to the NICE Foundation in our group’s effort would be appreciated. If you think your group can tackle the $3000 minimum for an on-site meal packing, don’t hesitate to contact them on your own! We don’t own the idea and just want to feed as many as we can!
The foundation also makes layettes for the rural hospitals, pillow-case dolls and dresses, and so much more! There is sure to be a project for everyone! (You can even go right to Nicaragua with them and get your hands dirty for real!)
Hi lady,
I would love to join your efforts. I am going to ask my curriculum leader if it would be ok and get back to you. When is the deadline or end of the fundraiser? What levels do you teach. I will be teaching 6,7, and 8 grade students, level 1, at Toano Middle School, Virginia.
Enid Reed
Forgive any spelling errors, my phone has emergent typing skills.
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I teach HS Spanish 2-4 and we plan to keep collecting until April! If we meet the goal early we will just do it again!!!
Thanks!
OMG, I love this idea, I feel like I am changing so much right now in Spanish IV because of the Seal of Biliteracy that right now I am shamelessly borrowing ideas and not doing as much idea creating I would like but the difference I am seeing in my students is incredible. So I am going to shamelessly steal another idea from you my friend. 😉
Borrow away! It makes it feel less overwhelming to get started!!!
Carrie, do you have any current information on the Nice foundation? I went to the address you posted but the site isn’t there. I would love to do something like this with my kids.