Spreading the love: Carmichaels students make a difference with words
Courtesy of Brittney Bell
Carmichaels fifth-graders brought to school gifts for adoptable animals at Humane Society of Greene County earlier this month. The gifts, along with persuasive essays penned by students, were dropped off to the humane society by fifth-grade teacher Brittney Bell.
A persuasive essay decorates Harper's crate at the Humane Society of Greene County, where cats and dogs hope the writings by Carmichaels fifth-graders will convince a loving family to take them home.
Courtesy of Brittney Bell
Adoptable dogs at the Humane Society of Greene County wait for loving fur-ever homes, and hope the essays hanging from their kennels, crafted by Carmichaels fifth-grade students for Do Good December, convince a kind person to take the pups home.
Courtesy of Brittney Bell
Carmichaels Area School District celebrates Do Good December each year as a way to give back in ways big and small. Along with crafting persuasive essays to help humane society animals get adopted, the fifth-grade class also donated toys, proudly displayed here, to the nonprofit.
Carmichaels Area School District fifth-graders earned their spot on the Nice List this year, after completing a month-long writing and math unit as part of the district’s Do Good December initiative.
“Do Good December is something that I saw people doing not for schools, just in general online, and I kind of adapted it for our school. The first year I did it was 2019. It was just my homeroom. I had them do challenges every day; I’d have them send cards to the senior center or Children’s Hospital, just so they would be thinking of other people,” said Brittney Bell, fifth-grade English and Language Arts teacher, who shared her DGD calendar with the school in case other teachers wanted to participate. “The message that I try to get across to the kids is the small things that we do add up.”
CASD has spread kindness in big ways and small for three holiday seasons, and this year, Bell’s fifth-grade team, including math teacher Kate Hillsman and learning support teacher Tymme Freeman, worked together to make a big, joyful impact at the Humane Society of Greene County.
“Miss Hillsman found a resource that had something to do with the humane society. She was thinking about doing something with that as a warm-up for her classes,” said Bell. “I saw something where someone was writing letters. (Hillsman) just had brought the idea of partnering to my mind – maybe if we reached out to the humane society, they’d let us hang these letters on (the animals’) crates. We all love animals; we feel this is something that’s close to our heart.”
The project, which cultivated students’ math, research, reading and writing skills, touched the young adults, too.
“I had one student who wrote six papers. Six. She only had to write one,” laughed Bell. “The humane society kept updating their website, so my kids were like, oh, no, we have to write about Cleo. They wanted them to get adopted.”
Freeman’s fifth-graders, too, went above and beyond to help adorable, adoptable dogs and cats.
“Normally my kids are not very excited for writing, just because it’s really difficult for them. It’s hard to find writing projects that they enjoy. They were really, really excited,” said Freeman. “We researched the humane society website. They started brainstorming some ideas to persuade people to take these animals home, why they would make good pets. They were so excited when we got to look at the real-life pictures of these animals.”
It was the real-world-difference-making that encouraged students to put in extra time and effort.
“In their minds, they’re thinking, if these animals get adopted, it’s because of me,” Freeman said. “They really, really tried their best. They were really proud when they got to see the final project.”
The final project was handwritten persuasive essays penned by passionate fifth-graders, which now hang on adoptable cat and dog crates at the Humane Society of Greene County.
Bell and her twin sister, Sarah Bell, hung essays on animals’ crates ahead of Christmas Day, and delivered donations of toys, treats and food to Jane Gapen, director of the humane society.
“When Sarah and I were hanging up the papers at the humane society, the volunteers were going through and reading them and some of them were in tears. These kids just wrote such beautiful things about these animals,” Bell said.
Finding forever homes for animals staying at the humane society is the goal of this year’s Do Good December, of course, but in a way, the project reached beyond the borders of Greene County.
“At Carmichaels, we’re encouraged to make connections within the community in general. Our superintendent, principal, are very invested in us. I’ve never done (DGD) on this big of a scale, having them all work together to make a difference instead of making them write something Christmas-themed,” Bell said. “I wanted the kids to see that you can make a difference with writing and it’s not just something teachers make you do in school. You can use your words to make the world a better place; you can be a difference maker. They were so invested in getting these animals adopted. I think we had a lot of good discussions about the world is bigger than just us and there are things we can do to make it a brighter place.”