Mt. Loafer Elementary Students are focused on service

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Mt. Loafer Elementary teachers want to encourage students to know that there are ways to serve at home, at school, in the community, and in the world.  During the month of March, students will be focused on the circles of service and the many ways and places they can serve. 

To serve their families, teachers are encouraging students to complete chores or work at home. As students complete jobs, they will fill out a form explaining their service.  The student council will read aloud the service students are providing at home. 

Teachers are finding ways for their students to serve at school by having students pick up trash, clean up the library shelves, help other students, help keep the lunchroom clean, etc. 

On Friday, March 30th, Mt Loafer will focus Club Day activities on providing a service for the community.  Club Day community service activities will vary from making file folder games, stationary, flower pen and pencils, small blankets, student created story and coloring books, reading stories on tape, and creating art work for rest homes and hospitals. 

In order to serve the world, Mt. Loafer Elementary will participate in a fundraiser held February 27th through March 23rd.  This fundraiser is to help earn money for a drill in South Sudan.  In preparation, teachers are reading aloud the true story "A Long Walk to Water." This book is a chronicle of the life of Salva Dut, one of the “Lost Boys” who, at age 11, survived Sudan’s civil war by walking across Africa’s harsh wilderness to reach safety in refugee camps. Nineteen years after being separated from his family, Salva went back to Sudan in search of his father. Ironically, his father had survived the brutal war only to become gravely ill from drinking contaminated water. Salva decided he would find a way to make sure his father never had to drink contaminated water again. He spent the next few years building his not-for-profit Water for South Sudan organization which has been drilling wells in Southern Sudan since 2005.

Mt. Loafer students will be learning about the many life changing benefits that take place when a well is drilled in a village. Women no longer have to travel long distances each day for water, more stable structures such as schools and clinics can be built with handmade bricks, and infant mortality and disease is dramatically reduced. Additionally, our students will be developing a better understanding of how fortunate they are to be living in the community they do today and what it means to become a true citizen of the world who reaches out to improve and positively impact the lives of others living on our planet.

The pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters students earn will be donated to help “change” the terrible water conditions many children live with in South Sudan. The teachers at Mt. Loafer hope that our human spirits will be touched. We encourage students to bring change or do a chore to earn some change for change!

You can learn more about this organization at www.waterforsouthsudan.org