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McDonogh’s fifth graders know that giving back to other kids comes in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes, giving back is raising money and sometimes it’s lending a helping hand. Sometimes the kids you give back to are halfway across the world and sometimes they are in your own backyard. This year, fifth grade students learned: many small people, doing many small things can alter the face of the world.

Powerful Connection
When English teacher Kim Mitchell read The Lotus Seed by Sherry Garland to her class earlier in the year, it set off a chain of events that will impact children in a small orphanage in Vietnam. The story is about a young Vietnamese girl who leaves her homeland and comes to America. After hearing the story, fifth grader Emmy F. told her teacher that she was adopted as an infant from an orphanage in Vietnam and had plans to return for a visit during Thanksgiving break. It was her first trip back to her homeland.

After the trip, Emmy shared her experience with her classmates and showed them her souvenirs, including an ao dai (traditional clothing from Vietnam), post cards, and the Vietnamese currency, the dong. Later in the year, Emmy wrote her personal narrative essay about the experience of returning to the orphanage.

Meanwhile, the fifth graders watched the 2007 Grassroots documentary The Human Experience, which included scenes of amazingly resilient children living in an orphanage in Peru. Wanting to know what they could do to help children with no mom or dad, conversations ignited and Emmy bravely shared her story.

In that moment, a fundraising opportunity was born. Quickly, Ms. Mitchell organized every fifth grade student into teams and they began what became known as the Power Up Campaign. They made posters advertising their effort and for three days, sold Powerades, Gatorades, and snack bars before school and during lunch. They raised an amazing $347, which will be donated to Emmy’s orphanage, The Thai Nguyen Center in Vietnam.

Kindergarten Lunch Buddies
For children in kindergarten, the transition from eating lunch in the Brass Eagle to being a first grader who has lunch in the “big” dining hall is a BIG deal. At the end of each year, kindergarten teachers take students to the main dining hall in an effort to prepare them for the lunch routines in first grade and beyond.

This year, teachers Kirk Robertson and Sharon Hood established the Lunch Buddies program to help ease the transition. The program, which pairs fifth grade mentors with kindergartners, is a wonderful leadership opportunity that serves a real purpose. In mid-May twenty-three fifth graders met the kindergarten kids in the front of Lamborn Hall. Each of the older children escorted two younger students into the building, through the food and drink lines, and safely to a seat at one of the tables where they remained as a table head. For the kindergartners, their first opportunity to be in the ‘big’ dining hall was made much easier thanks to their fifth grade ‘lunch buddies.”

Math-A-Thon
For more than 13 years, Middle School math teacher, Ken Waller, has been encouraging students to participate in a Math-A-Thon as a way to help the young patients at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. The fifth graders secure pledges and then solve math problems at their own pace through an online Funbook. The money they raise is then donated to the fight against childhood cancer. The middle schoolers not only enjoy the challenge of solving the math problems, they know they are also helping other children. Since it began in 2000, McDonogh’s Math-A-Thon has raised a total of $97,373 for St. Jude.