Students at Jefferson Middle Participate in Operation Christmas Child

At Jefferson Middle School, the members of the ICONS service club filled 15 shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child.

Here is what Barry Stevenson, who teaches eight-grade social studies, had to say about the project:

“Our service club consists of students from just our team.  At the beginning of the year, I had students who were interested in being a part of the service club to write a brief essay on what they thought service was, and what ideas for projects they had.  One of the students had the idea to collect supplies and fill boxes for Operation Christmas Child. 

“Since we had never tried it before, we set a goal of filling 15 boxes, but probably collected enough to fill 20 boxes.  We donated the extra supplies to the children's ministry at my church as they were also filling boxes. 

“As a team, we also collected enough money to cover the shipping and tracking for the boxes. One great aspect of a project like this is that we can bring this into the classroom and discuss where the boxes are going and what the situation is in that portion of the world.  Having a real world hand in making the lives of those less fortunate can be extremely impactful for middle school students. 

“After the team collected supplies, the service club stayed after school and filled the boxes.  Some of the students that helped out stated that ‘it was for a good cause and was a good thing to do’ and ‘It was fun to help out the community, even in other parts of the world.’ 

“Our next project is to collect money from our team to go shopping for our school's Angel Tree. We usually take them to Target and to the mall to have them pick out the items that are needed.  This is a pretty fun experience for me as a teacher because I get to interact with students while helping them understand what empathy is for those around us.”