5
THE LION'S ROAR
APRIL 2019
Grades 4 and 10
Grades 4 and 10 paired up for their service project to do some crayon peeling. Why crayon peeling, you ask? The crayons will be melted down, reshaped, and sold through Crayons for Cancer.
Crayons for Cancer's mission is "to be passionately committed to helping ease the financial burdens of families whose children are currently suffering from the devastating effects of cancer. [Their] goal is to raise money by selling fun and cute-shaped crayons at children's hospitals nationwide while teaching children the value of helping others. [They] also hope that through [their] efforts [they] will help demonstrate God's love by enveloping these children and families in love and tenderness at a very tough time in their lives."
We felt that this matched well with our CCS mission "to engage and educate young people to know Christ and be equipped to impact the world for God's kingdom," in that we engaged in this project together, we were serving and helping others, and we were impacting the world--especially the lives of those suffering and their families--for God's kingdom. We were also able to make cards of encouragement for some of the people for whom we have been praying in our classrooms .
Grades 1 and 7
For their service project in March, Grads 1 and 7 got together to make cards for the 13 middle and high school residents of Waterford Country School, a rural school for older children in the foster program in the Waterford area. Two of the girls who live at WCS stayed with Ms. LaBranche last year for several months. She distributed a list of special gift ideas to be collected over two weeks: sweet and salty snacks, fidgets, journals, pens/pencils, hygiene products, ramen noodles (a category of their very own). These items (collected in groups of 6 for the girls and 7 for the boys) will be packed up along with the homemade cards and gospel books (Life books and easy picture books) on Friday, March 15, and delivered on Saturday, March 16. We hope to show the tangible love of Jesus Christ to these students who have little to no family and often feel alone and unloved.
Grades 3 and 9
Grades 3 and 9 paired up to bless CCS teachers by creating notes of encouragement and sweet treats for the evenings that teachers stay late to conduct parent-teacher conferences. These days are long and require a lot of energy, and the boost of finding a fun note and some goodies in their mailboxes is a nice blessing on those days!
Grades 5 and 11
Grades 5 and 11 made cards for Operation Gratitude. This organization sends 250,000+ care packages each year to deployed troops, veterans, new recruits, and first responders all over the world. They include letters in each package, so the letters that the students made will go with these packages to bless the recipients. We chose this activity to equip students to impact the world for God's Kingdom because being thankful and grateful are biblical principles. In 1 Thessalonians 5:18 it says, "Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." By showing appreciation and encouragement to others, students are stepping into one part of God's will for their lives.