FIFTH OPENING – The Sitka seine boats Hukilau and Rose Lee pump herring aboard this afternoon at the end of Deep Inlet during the fifth opening in the Sitka Sound sac roe herring fishery. The opening was being held in two locations beginning at 11 a.m. (Sentinel Photo by James Poulson)
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Daily Sitka Sentinel
Keet 2nd Graders Fill the Halls, Aid Needy
By KLAS STOLPE
Sentinel Staff Writer
Even if stockings are hung by the chimney with care, Keet Gooshi Heen second graders want to make sure that even the neediest families in Sitka will have them filled to the brim with food staples they need for a happy holiday season.
The students are in the midst of a huge project to assist those less fortunate during this holiday month.
Entitled “Fill The Halls,” it is a school-wide food drive for the Salvation Army.
“We get to take all this food and give it to the people that need food,” second grader Maleah Partido said, surrounded by canned goods to be counted and recorded.
“We get to help people.”
She said spaghetti sauce was her favorite item collected.
“I just like helping people that don’t have very much food,” classmate Taan Moll said. “There are plenty of people that need help.”
Keet Gooshi Heen Elementary School second-graders Kyla Neal, left, and Grayson Loomis do an inventory of donated food as instructor Jule Peterson points to graphics on the laptop display. The revived school-wide food drive project, which was last held in 2012, is part of a language arts program that has “Lend a Hand” as the theme. (Sentinel Photo by James Poulson)
Moll recounted a story of his mother and sister riding home and a homeless person asking them for money.
“Because he must have been hungry or something like that,” Moll said. “I see lots of people that need help. Like in the Pioneer Home there are lots of old people that need help too. I hope Sitka starts to give more cans of food.”
The second grade classes of Jule Peterson, Cindy Duncan, Megan Bahrt, Hanna McCarty, and Stephanie Peterson have been in charge of creating posters, making flyers, decorating donation boxes, creating announcements to be aired through the school, taking advertisements and making presentations to other grades in the school, and tallying the various food items donated.
“The students have organized all of that,” Peterson said. “The teachers have just facilitated what they are going to do. It is a second grade organized event to get all the grades to participate plus the community.”
The event has also embedded computer science, math, and speaking and language skills, since it is the students who have planned and are currently implementing their event.
Peterson said the kids are learning about what it means to be a good citizen. Their National Geographic English Language Arts curriculum theme this month is “Lend A Hand, being a good citizen when others around you are in need.”
“So the second grade teachers thought of doing a project with the whole community,” Peterson said. “So lending a hand and giving back, we thought of a food drive, which Keet Gooshi Heen has done in the past, but we wanted the second graders to have more of a hand in it.”
The school’s Elementary Learning Support Coordinator, Diana Twaddle, has also played a role in organizing the food drive. Twaddle’s position is through the CRESEL Grant (Culturally Responsive Embedded Social Emotional Learning).
The food drive has helped the students gain a real-world experience on what it means to be a good citizen.
“The students definitely have ownership over the whole thing,” Peterson said. “They feel very proud of it and excited. It doesn’t feel like something I am making them do. It feels like something they are all doing together and they are coming up with ideas I have not even thought of.”
The planning began two weeks ago and the collections started on Monday.
The second graders carefully planned their box designs, set collection goals, and even created a digital counter to count the cans of food collected.
“This is the first day counting,” Grayson Cody Loomis said as he recorded cans with classmate Gianna Caesy. “I like using my computer.”
The Keet Gooshi Heen students got so involved they even wrote a song for a video to be shown during lunch time for the school.
“We made it up,” Partido said, and she and Moll began to sing…
“Fill the halls with cans of food
Fa la la laa
La la laa
Bring a box a can or two
Macaroni and cheese
Or your favorite stew
Lend a hand to your community
Fa la laa
La la laa
La la la
Give to those who are in need
And know in your heart it’s a selfless deed.”
Partido said she hopes everyone helps out and her classmates want to continue the drive past the holiday season.
“I think the people of Sitka can be nicer this time of year,” she said.
Donations from the community can be brought to the Keet Gooshi Heen main office through Thursday, December 20, where a large box is waiting to be filled with cans of food and non-perishable food items.
And If you are really lucky you may hear a second grader singing their message of giving for the holidays.
Below is a link to the kids singing their song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nVPxaLSOV4
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20 YEARS AGO
March 2004
Matthew C. Hunter of Sitka recently returned from Cuba as part of a St. Olaf College International and Off-Campus Studies program. Hunter, a junior physics major at St. Olaf College, is the son of Robert and Kim Hunter of Sitka.
50 YEARS AGO
March 1974
Eighth graders have returned from a visit to Juneau to see the Legislature. They had worked for it since Christmas vacation ... Clarice Johnson’s idea of a “White Elephant” sales was chosen as the best money-maker; Joe Roth won the political cartoon assignment; highest government test scorers were Ken Armstrong, Joanna Hearn, Linda Montgomery, Lisa Henry, Calvin Taylor and David Licari .....