Title of Project: 100 lbs of Clothing

Grade Level: 3rd

Number of Students Participating: 60

Contributed by: Nicole Nazzarine, Kelly Reeves and Tara Bell; Glenn O. Swing Elementary; Covington Independent Schools

Overview/Description of Project: Addressing causes, stereotypes and “faces” of homelessness, students used persuasive letter writing skills to solicit the help of local stores and their school to donate 100 lbs of clothes to Be Concerned.

Goals:

- Students will learn and understand goods distribution as well as the difference between needs and wants

- Students will learn how to write persuasively

- Students will learn how to create an advertisement

- Students will learn how to be a productive member of their community

- Students will keep a log and calculate the pounds of clothing collected

Core Content Areas:

SS-EP-1.3.2 Identify and give examples of good citizenship in the community

SS-EP-3.4.3 Define interdependence and give examples of how people in our communities depend on each other for goods and services.

SS-EP-3.1.1 Define basic economic terms related to scarcity (wants and needs)

MA-EP-1.3.1 Analyze real-world problems to identify the appropriate mathematical operations and apply operations to solve real-world problems

MA-EP-4.1.2 Collect Data

STEP BY STEP GUIDE

STEP 1: PREPARATION

- Students read The Hundred Dresses by Elanor Estes, a book about Wanda, a Polish immigrant girl who is so poor that she wears the same dress to school every day. She was mocked because of her poverty, and for claiming to have "100 dresses lined up in her closet.” Eventually, she and her family move to the city hoping for better treatment. It isn’t until after she leaves that her classmates find out that she really did have a hundred dresses, though not in the way they expected.

- Students saw the play The Hundred Dresses at the Aronoff Center as a connection to the novel.

- Students designed flyers to advertise their clothing drive

- Students wrote persuasive letters to department stores to encourage them to donate to their clothing drive

STEP 2: ACTION

- Students organized and advertised for the clothing drive and collections

- Students weighed and tallied the collected clothes

- Students donated the clothing to Be Concerned and St. Vincent DePaul’s

STEP 3: REFLECTION

- Most of the project is reflected on through discussion with teachers and each others

- Editing/Revising persuasive letters

- Culminating activity/reflection of project

STEP 4: CELEBRATION/DEMONSTRATION

- Clothes were taken to Be Concerned and St. Vincent DePaul’s

- Student success was announced to the entire school over the loud speaker

- News article on nky.com and in NKY Enquirer