Upper Arlington, OH—The Tremont Elementary First Grade has partnered with Proctor & Gamble (P&G) to raise awareness of the significant global water issue and enable others to help solve this problem. The Children’s Safe Drinking Water Program (CSDW) focuses on helping children in need around the world. The first graders will host the Water Olympics on Saturday, September 28th from 10AM-12PM on Tremont’s front lawn.

More than 2,000 children die every day from diseases caused by drinking unsafe water. P&G has developed a low-cost technology to purify even heavily contaminated drinking water so that it meets World Health Organization standards for safe drinking water. For only two pennies, a child can have clean drinking water for a day. 100% of proceeds will go to CSDW. 

By Karen Patterson, “Growing Together” Service-Learning Network Field Coordinator

Tremont Elementary teachers Erin May, Megan Brandenstein, Leslie Fewell, Ashley Ingram, and Gina Salvatore, along with their first grade classes, collaborated with Hastings Middle School teacher Elizabeth Egbert’s seventh grade art students on an “Empty Bowls” service-learning project to raise awareness and money around the issue of hunger.

First, students learned about hunger in Ohio and the work of the Mid-Ohio Foodbank. Next, the first graders held a food drive during the week before Thanksgiving to kick off their hunger awareness project. Then, Egbert’s middle school students made one hundred ceramic bowls, one for each first grader at Tremont. The bowls were transported to Tremont where the first graders glazed and fired them as part of their art class with the help of their art teacher, Susan Sundberg. 

The elementary students used their knowledge in a number of subjects, including language arts, math, social studies, and art, to be successful in this project. For the middle school students, the project met one of the Ohio Visual Arts standards: “Create a work of art in collaboration with others to address a social or cultural issue.”

In order to display their ceramic bowls and celebrate their service-learning efforts, the students and teachers held a “Soup-er Bowl” fundraising dinner at Tremont on February 11, 2014. All of the students and their families were invited to eat soup and choose one of the student-made bowls to take home. The money raised will benefit Mid-Ohio Foodbank. Teacher Erin May stated, “As of right now, we have raised over $550—Mid-Ohio Foodbank can buy more than 2,000 meals with that much money!”

"This is an exciting and rewarding project for our 7th graders. It connects the curriculum and state standards with their commitment to service and support of the Mid-Ohio Foodbank. They know their efforts make a real impact in the lives of the Central Ohio community."—Teacher Elizabeth Egbert