Posted on Weekly Community News by Emily Crisman on January 28, 2015
Baylor School students are taking the lead locally in participating in Lead2Feed, a service-learning program based on the David Novak book “Taking People with You: The Only Way to Make Big Things Happen.”
Contributed photo From left are Baylor School students Abigail Bowen, Dawson Brown, Pearl Cornell, Alec Coussoule, Walter Crisp, PJ Goodwin, Evan Hessler, Cooper Lewis, John Musick, Kate Padilla, Nick Perlaky, Franny Pettway, Bailey Priddy, Charlie Rehm, Cecilia Rodriguez, Tess Rolleston, Zach Taylor and Belle Wilson.
“The curriculum was adapted from the book to teach middle and high school students leadership skills through service learning,” said Emmie Treadwell, who teaches Issues and Solutions to eighth-graders at Baylor, and led her students to complete two projects with the Chattanooga Area Food Bank last semester.
The ultimate goal of Issues and Solutions is to solve global issues using 21st century skills, she said. Baylor is among 2,500 schools and organizations that have participated in the Lead2Feed World Hunger Leadership Challenge.
On Halloween, the students went into their neighborhoods in groups and collected canned food instead of candy, gathering about 600 pounds of food. The students also held a fall festival on Baylor’s campus, raising close to $1,000 that was donated to the food bank.
The students also went to the food bank once a week for an hour, performing tasks such as packing snack packs and weighing pasta. In all, the students packed about 15,000 meals, said student Nick Parlacky.
“I liked working at the food bank and want to volunteer more,” Cecilia Rodriguez said. “I learned that leadership and teamwork is important. We all had to pitch in to make things work.”
Dillan Desai said the project taught him a lot about community.
“We often ran into problems and had to talk it out and make decisions,” he said. “We were always working together, which helped with collaboration.”
“We all had a part to do,” said Carolyn Potts. “It wasn’t just one person doing all the work.”
Baylor was selected for the Lead2Feed Leadership Award and was awarded $5,000 for technology products. The students decided to donate the technology, which includes four laptops and one iPad mini, to the food bank.
The project will move on to final judging in April, and the school could win up to $20,000, as well as up to $25,000 for the food bank.
To learn more about Lead2Feed and the benefits it can provide to local schools and charitable organizations, visit here.