Published by Courier Journal, December 22, 2015
The giving spirit and leadership of a class of sixth-graders at Johnson Traditional Middle have earned the entire school $5,000 in new technology.
Teacher Stephanie Weatherholt said one of her roles as a teacher is to foster leadership and a sense of compassion in her students. The longtime educator said that’s what drew her to a program called Lead2Feed, a free student leadership-development program that aims to raise awareness about hunger and other societal issues.
As part of the Lead2Feed program, Weatherholt last month organized a field trip for her life skills class to the Dare to Care Food Bank. The 15 students in the class stuffed about 1,300 backpacks with food that day, Weatherholt said. Later that month, the students opted to hold a canned food drive at the school, organizing the event themselves and collecting nearly 2,800 cans.
“This sort of thing is a life-changing event for some of our students,” Weatherholt said. “When they go out and volunteer in the community, they see there are others who don’t have as much as them. … One of the parents on our field trip said this is one of the most important things their kids has done in school.”
But Weatherholt’s class earned more than life lessons from their volunteer efforts last month. Weatherholt submitted her students’ projects to the Lead2Feed organization, which this month did a random drawing of those projects and selected five schools nationwide to win $5,000 in technology.
Weatherholt said her school will receive nine new iPads and a $125 Apple gift card. The school already has 10 iPads that are kept on a cart for teachers to check out, but Weatherholt pointed out that most classes have about 30 students. Adding nine more tablets would enable teachers to do partner work on the iPads, she said.
“It just makes me very proud when I can see the compassion they can have and the leadership skills they develop at such a young age,” Weatherholt said.
The other four schools to receive $5,000 in technology were: Glasgow High School in Newark, Delaware; Stockbridge High School in Stockbridge, Georgia; George Washington High School in Chicago; and Atlanta High School in Atlanta, Louisiana.