Hello all,

Letter H is for Helping Week was honorable, humbling, and of course FULL of Helping! For the first time this year, the students held off on bringing shares to school; however, the students did not come to school empty handed! All week long, the students (and their parents) entered PPA with assorted canned goods and dried food. This food was collected throughout the week and on Friday was donated to the C.A.U.S.E. Food Pantry, a local organization located at 739 Bergen Avenue that helps feed families from all over the surrounding area. Take a look at the photo below to see the donation from the extremely generous students (and families) of Park Prep. We are sure that this donation will help fill the bellies of so many people this holiday season. Thank you to all of the families that contributed to this large and impressive donation!

 

 

For their morning work on Monday and Tuesday, the students studied the letter H by completing their letter H coloring and writing/tracing activities.  In the afternoon, the students collaborated to create a list of words beginning with the letter H – also known as a letter H word list!  Here is the list they came up with.

 

 

Wednesday morning began with a discussion about what it means to HELP.  During the discussion, the students decided that helping was when you do something nice for someone else.  The teachers informed the students that Wednesday’s morning work activity would be all about helping a very special group of people – senior citizens!  When asked if they knew what the term “Senior Citizen” meant, the students seemed a bit puzzled.  The teachers helped explain that senior citizens (or seniors for short) are people who have been alive for a VERY long time!  One student raised his hand and asked, “Alive for a long time – like 7 years?”  The teachers explained that seniors were more like SEVENTY-SEVEN years old!

Like everyone from time to time, seniors need a little extra care – particularly around the holidays.  The seniors that the PPA students decided to help are the permanent residents of the Hamilton Park Health Care Center located at 525 Montgomery Street in Jersey City.  The students spent their morning crafting four beautiful and elaborate holiday cards for each of the residents.  They turned out incredible!

 

 

During the afternoon on Wednesday, the helping discussion continued and the students concluded that everyone, no matter how old, can help!  The students then made a list of various ways that kids can help!   Here is what they came up with!

 

 

After school on Wednesday, the teachers visited the Hamilton Park Health Care Center to hand out the cards to the senior residents.  The cards helped make everyone at the H.P.H.C.C. feel so special and happy during the holidays!

 

 

Thursday’s helping activity was all about animals!  The teachers explained that some animals do not have a home or owners to take care of them.  Unlike the animals in the students’ houses, these animals have to find their own food and take care of themselves.  Fortunately, there are wonderful people who spend  their time to help these special animals by keeping them healthy, finding them a home and providing them with food to eat.

The students were so excited to learn that they would be helping these animals by spending the morning baking homemade cat and dog treats for them to eat!  Following the directions in the recipes, the students mixed together special ingredients and then placed them on baking trays which the teachers baked later that day.  While the teachers were baking the treats, the students colored little dog and cat coloring pages and stuffed each bag with the appropriate picture to match the treat. The doggie poems went into the bags for the doggies and the kitty poems were for the kitties.

 

 

The students could hardly contain their excitement when they learned that they would be paid a visit by a representative from the Hudson County Animal League, an organization that helps injured, stray or lost animals find homes with owners who will love and take care of them.  The representative, Miss Kathleen, would be coming to PPA in the afternoon to help teach the students about the efforts of the H.C.A.L. and also to accept the students homemade dog and cat treats to be distributed and shared by all the animals helped by the H.C.A.L.  Miss Kathleen, pictured below, surprised the students by bringing a very special guest – Reese, a three month old kitty that was rescued by the H.C.A.L.  Miss Kathleen explained how Reese was all alone before the H.C.A.L. found him. Doesn’t Reese look so happy and healthy now?  The students presented the baked treats from the morning to Miss Kathleen who was so grateful for all of the students’ hard work.  After the treats had been presented, the students had an opportunity to meet (and pet) Reese!  Needless to say, this was a highlight of the day!  Miss Kathleen (and probably Reese) was shocked to see how gentle the preschoolers were when handling an animal.

 

 

Before Miss Kathleen left PPA, the students presented her with a monetary donation to the H.C.A.L. on behalf of Park Prep Academy.  Miss Kathleen explained that this donation will help pay for food, veterinary visits, toys, and housing for animals just like Reese!  Fortunately Reese’s story has a very happy ending – in a few weeks Reese will head to his “Forever Home”.  A “Forever Home” is what the H.C.A.L. calls it when one of their rescue animals is adopted by a family who will love and care for him forever!  A special thank you to Miss Kathleen and Reese for coming to PPA and teaching us about the H.C.A.L.

After school, a few of the teachers took four full cookie trays over to the Liberty Humane Society facility located at 235 Jersey City Boulevard.  The Liberty Humane Society houses both cats and dogs, all of whom were in the mood for a tasty treat!  The animals seemed so happy as they devoured the treats the students baked.  As the teachers recalled from last year, a video of the feedings was out of the question as it sounded like the doggies were in a “Who can bark the loudest?” contest!   The cats were much quieter and took their time eating the treats.  The cats all seemed to have a general rule about the cookies- play with the treat first, lick the treat, then eat the treat!  Regardless of how they went about eating them, one thing was clear – they were yummy!  Here are some of the highlights from our visit to the Liberty Humane Society.

 

 

Friday was another day full of helping!  This time the group was not seniors or animals but instead the servicemen and servicewomen of the United States Military.  These brave men and women spend the holidays (and other days!) all over the world, away from their homes and families to help keep all of the people living in the United States safe!  While it is hard to express our gratitude entirely, the PPA students were eager to help in any way possible!

The PPA teachers knew just who to call to help the U.S. Military!   The teachers contacted a very helpful and special Paramus, New Jersey school teacher named Jane Cosco.  Back in 2003, Mrs. Cosco was driving in her car and listening to the radio when a woman called in to inform the public of plans to cut military holiday budgets and ask for civilian donations for soldiers stationed overseas during the holiday season.

Finding this unacceptable, Mrs. Cosco rallied her middle school students to volunteer their time to stuff goody bags with special treats that would be sent over to the troops stationed in Iraq and away from their families during the holiday season.  Operation Goody Bag, as it was named, started out as an afterschool activity seven years ago and has grown tremendously!  Mrs. Cosco and her helpers have stuffed and sent over 257,000 goody bags to thank our troops!  In 2009, the students of PPA contributed 300 bags to that amazing and impressive number!  In 2010, the PPA students contributed another 373 bags to that number!  Last year, the students of PPA exceeded the 1,000 total goody bags made as they stuffed an additional 400 goody bags!  For her efforts, Mrs. Cosco was the recipient of the Call to Service Award by former President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush.  For all of the hard work and generosity over the years, Operation Goody Bag was awarded a federal grant from the Corporation of National and Community Service!   Talk about Helping others!

The students were so excited to learn that they would be responsible for making goody bags with Mrs. Cosco and a few surprise guests!  The teachers explained that step one of making the goody bags involved decorating the bags!  The students got right to work that morning by coloring in the heart coloring pages that were later cut out and glued onto each bag.

 

 

Before long, the time had arrived and Mrs. Cosco greeted the students of PPA warmly!  Thanks to Miss Karina, Mrs. Cosco was accompanied by two Marine Corporals!  Childhood friends of Miss Karina, both Corporal Ruddy Adames and Corporal Magic Hidalgo volunteered their time to come visit the students of PPA and discuss a bit about the Marine Corps.   The students were so excited to meet Mrs. Cosco, Marine Ruddy, and Marine Magic!  After a quick welcome, Mrs. Cosco spoke a bit about the goody bags then began a technology presentation which contained PowerPoints created by her students!  The students also observed a PowerPoint which showed students, just like them, stuffing and giving out goody bags to actual military servicemen and servicewomen!  From the looks on their faces, the servicemen and servicewomen really appreciated these bags!

 

 

After observing the presentations and seeing actual sailors and soldiers receiving goody bags, the students could hardly wait to get started creating them!  Watch below to see how each bag was created.

 

Photo Sharing – Video Sharing – Photo Printing 

The students and Marines worked feverishly until every last piece of candy was packed and goody bag was stuffed!

 

 

Take a guess as to how many goody bags they made!  100?  No! 200? No! 300?  No!

526 GOODY BAGS!

That brings PPA total to 1,599 goody bags in all! 

That is A LOT of goody bags!

After all the goody bags were packed, the students had the opportunity to chat with Marine Ruddy and Marine Magic about their fancy uniforms and even try on their hats!  Marine Ruddy and Marine Magic wore their uniforms proudly as they explained all of the different parts of their uniform.  The students took a minute to say a very special thank you to Marine Ruddy and Marine Magic as they presented them with extra special goody bags.  The students were so proud of their hard work and the Marines were very appreciative.

 

 

A special thank you to Mrs. Cosco and Marine Ruddy and Marine Magic for spending time with us and for keeping us safe!  After the students’ efforts today, Mrs. Cosco’ s Operation Goody Bag is now 257,526 goody bags!  Keep up the great work Mrs. C!

Wow!  What a wonderful and busy week of helping!  The students will surely be in the holiday spirit as we head into next week!  Park Prep Academy staff and students would like to take this opportunity to thank all of the organizations that opened their doors to us this week.   Donations on behalf of Park Prep Academy were made to each of the groups that helped make H week so special.  We hope that everyone enjoyed spending time with us as much as we did with them.  See you next week!