St. Wendel Third-graders Making A Difference

Like all of the classes at Saint Wendel Catholic School, Mr. Nowak’s third-grade class chose a service project at the beginning of the school year. Over the past several months, the students have put a lot of hard work and effort into helping Evansville’s Ronald McDonald House. In late August, Jeremy Evans, executive director of the Ronald McDonald House Charities of the Ohio Valley, spoke to the third-graders; and the project took off from there.

Students started by organizing a school-wide aluminum-can-tab collection. They created posters, decorated buckets, and served as ambassadors by teaching the other classes in the school about the Ronald McDonald House mission. The third-graders plan to recycle the tabs and donate the money earned to the charity later this school year.

In addition to the pop-tab collection, the class also has prepared treats for the families staying at the house. Already this school year, the students baked Halloween cookies, made Christmas candy and bagged some kid-friendly snack mix. But the most fun came before Christmas break when each of the students donated some of their Christmas money to buy some staples for the house during an evening shopping trip to Walmart.

The third-graders broke into small groups and shopped for the necessities. Everyone was shocked and excited to see $428 worth of merchandise as a result. They were so excited, in fact, that they all celebrated with some ice cream cones and hot fudge sundaes from – where else? McDonald’s, of course!

The third-graders realize that they are not finished yet. They plan to cook at least two dinners at the Ronald McDonald House this semester and continue with the pop-tab collection. The third-grade families each will make a dessert at home to donate to the house as well. For information on how you can help out Mr. Nowak’s class in their service project efforts, please contact rnowak@evdio.org.