Bead For Life

My students are once again all fired up about a project we’re working on.  Let me tell you about it.

I decided last year that I wanted to do a project on social activism with my eighth graders this year.  They are such a fun group (not that my other students aren’t), and I knew this would be something they could really run with. 

I wanted our project to be something that would make them take a look at a problem in our world, and then explore some way to solve the problem or make a difference for someone facing this problem.  I gave them some examples of people who had done this, like Blake McCoskie with TOMS ShoesTOMS or Edesia with PlumpyNut.  Another company I highlighted was Bead For Life.  I had received beads in my goodie bag at some of the social studies conferences I had attended, so I downloaded their curriculum in December so that I could make it one of the options for my students.

A couple of weeks ago, Bead For Life sent me an email saying that NBC news wanted to feature their company in a nightly segment they do called “Making a Difference.”  They went on to say that they would like to highlight this program being used in a school that has a low income population.  They wanted to know if we’d be interested in participating.

With that exciting news, the wheels starting turning.  I contacted some key people to get their input, and we started making some plans.  That’s when the connections started to grow.  The company has a plan for schools to use this as a fund raiser; so we would be able to keep a percentage of the money raised.  And with our principal just having been diagnosed with breast cancer, what better way could we show our support for her than by donating the funds to cancer research.

There are some other connections we are going to try to make, but I won’t go into them all right now.  We’ll see how things develop.

We filmed a couple of commercials to get the word out.  This one is on our FB page. 

Another one will run on the TVs that play in the halls at school to let all the students know what’s going on.

I don’t know if the connection with NBC news will ever come about, but I don’t care.  The kids are so excited about this project!  They can see that they can make a difference.  What I want them to take away from all of this is that it doesn’t matter how small you are or how far back in the hills you live, you can have an impact.  You can make life better for people in Africa.  You can make a difference in the lives of people battling cancer.  You can make the world a better place.

What better message can I teach them than that?