This year Merrimac Elementary School’s Parents As Reading Partners (P.A.R.P.) program ran through the month of March. This program includes all grade levels and the requirements are that each student reads 15-30 minutes a day or more throughout the entire month. Students may read on their own, or be read to by a parent or guardian, a friend, a sibling, or another adult in order to qualify for the program. Our school-wide goal was to read 145,000 minutes throughout the month and two students from Mrs. Meade’s 5th grade class developed a system in which P.A.R.P. participants could connect that goal while being empowered to help others in need. This inspired our theme, “Read With a Child and Help Feed a Child.”
Amir Gharbi and Sofia Polimine created a service learning project entitled Read to Feed to tie into P.A.R.P. They based their idea on something they had done earlier in the year in their classroom with reaching a goal of reading 100 books. These students spent time researching different ideas and created their plan which became a wildly important school-wide goal. Amir and Sofia hosted our kick-off assemblies on March 2, 2015 and shared their idea of making and contributing peanut butter & jelly sandwiches to an outreach center, The Lighthouse Mission, in Bellport to help feed the less fortunate.
In an effort to include as many students as possible they developed the following plan: students in grades K-2 who read at least 240 minutes earned an empty lunch bag to decorate. Students in grades 3-5, who read 150 minutes per week each earned one raffle ticket each week for a chance to help make the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
At the completion of P.A.R.P. students’ names were chosen and they were assigned to a different stage in the PB & J-making process. Some students helped by filling the decorated lunch bags with bottles of water and granola bars or pretzels, while others participated in smearing peanut butter or jelly on bread or by placing the completed sandwiches in a baggie. When all of the decorated lunch bags were filled and packaged into boxes, Amir and Sofia along with Mrs. Gharbi, Mr. Polimine, Mrs. Meade and our school principal, Mrs. DeCicco, made the trip to the Lighthouse Mission to deliver the food.
Upon their return, Mrs. DeCicco said, “I am inspired by our fifth grade students, Amir and Sofia, and their motivation to help others. Merrimac has always had P.A.R.P. programs to build reading skills but this year was different. The students seized the opportunity to help the less fortunate with a ‘hands on approach.’ When we delivered the bag lunches and other donated supplies, the students learned firsthand where the food goes and how our contributions will be shared.
As Dr. Covey stated, “Leadership is communicating a person’s worth and potential so clearly that they are inspired to see it in themselves.” Amir and Sofia’s idea turned into a reality. They have impacted our entire community…they’ve learned that our circle of influence can expand beyond our classroom walls.”
Thanks to the help of the Merrimac PTA, items such as Ziploc bags, loaves of bread, jars of peanut butter and jelly, bottled waters, granola bars, pretzels, and napkins were donated during the last week of P.A.R.P.
Not only were the Merrimac students successful in reaching the school-wide goal of helping to feed the less fortunate, but they also surpassed their goal of reading 145,00 minutes. “We had a large number of students participate in P.A.R.P. this year…more so than any other year in the past. Students really were inspired and worked hard to read a ton so that they could earn a lunch bag or a raffle ticket for a chance to participate in the sandwich making. One student even read close to 4,000 minutes on their own!” stated P.A.R.P. committee chairperson and school librarian, Lisa Martinez.
“We were thoroughly impressed not only with the amount of reading that was done this month, but by the willingness and excitement of all of the students to participate,” Mrs. DeCicco said.
–Submitted by Lisa Martinez, Merrimac Librarian and P.A.R.P. Leader