Leadership Award-Winning Schools Get $5,000 in Tech Tools
Five teachers and their schools around the United
States will
each receive $5,000 of technology tools as recipients of the Lead2Feed
Leadership Awards.
In a program developed by the USA
Today Charitable Foundation,
the Yum!
Brands Foundation and the Lift
a Life Foundation, the five schools
were selected at random from a group of schools that submitted their
Lead2Feed
World Hunger Challenge projects into the competition.
All the qualifying student-led projects were intended
to help
with local hunger relief organizations and do everything from volunteer
at local
food pantries to author children's books about hunger and deliver care
packages
to families in need.
The financial awards, underwritten by the Yum! Brands
Foundation, are intended to be used to obtain tablets and computers that
students and their teachers can use in their efforts to make meaningful
changes
in their communities.
The winning schools are:
- Eisenhower
High
School, Lawton, OK, which collected $4,000
worth of
non-perishable food and $1,243 in cash donations for the local
Salvation Army's
food pantry;
- First
Colonial
High School, Virginia Beach, VA, which collected
enough food
to fill 300 bags of groceries that were then distributed to local
residents;
- Harlan
County
High School Gifted Leadership Program, Harlan, KY,
which
collected 30,000 pounds of food for people in need at a local event
sponsored
by the Kentucky State Police. The students also shopped for a week's
worth of
groceries for a hypothetical family of five living at poverty level to
get a
sense of how difficult it is to do so;
- McDowell
Intermediate
High School, Erie, PA, which led an information
campaign
on hunger issues in conjunction with the second Harvest Food Bank; and
- The
Baylor
School, Chattanooga, TN, which hosted a fall
festival
that raised $850 for the Chattanooga Area Food Bank and collected more
than 600
pounds of canned goods during a Halloween trick-or-treating event.
Another similar drawing will be held in late March
and from
those school projects, along with the ones above, the one with the most
outstanding student-led hunger relief project will win up to $25,000 for
its
charitable partner and $20,000 for its school.
Schools interested in applying to be eligible have
until March 15 to submit
their projects.
"Lead2Feed provides educators with a
turnkey service-learning
experience for students that teaches collaboration, communication,
critical
thinking and creativity," said Diane Barrett, president of the USA Today
Charitable
Foundation.
The Common Core-aligned Lead2Feed program sponsored
by the
three foundations incorporates a curriculum that includes leadership
principles
described in "Taking People With You: The Only Way to Make Big Things
Happen,"
written by David Novak, executive chairman of Yum! Brands.
About the Author
Michael Hart is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer and the former executive editor of THE Journal.