Students make items for homeless

For the second year, Greenwood students are making scarves and blankets for the homeless after a sixth-grade student received a grant to keep the program going.

The community outreach project at Westwood Elementary School will provide 50 scarves and 15 blankets to the homeless, while also teaching students about the need to look after the less fortunate, art teacher Lauren Kibbe said. Kibbe took over the project, which was started by then-librarian Susan Kinkade last year.

Chase Stanger, a sixth-grade student at Greenwood Middle School, took part in the project last year. To give future students the same opportunity he had, he applied for and received a $400 grant from the Johnson County Community Foundation. The money went toward buying about 80 yards of fleece, which will be enough to make 50 scarves and 15 blankets to be given to the homeless, Kibbe said.

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For about 250 third-, fourth- and fifth-grade students at Westwood Elementary, the project is an opportunity to practice the core values they are taught each month, she said. The value they discussed in November was honor, and the students learned about how they honor people by showing how valuable they are, Kibbe said.

A retired teacher helped sew the scarves and blankets, and then the students put the finishing touches on them and decorate paper ornaments, she said.

The students colored creative patterns and wrote short poems or Christmas greetings on the paper ornaments, which were attached to each blanket and scarf.

The project provides important lessons for the students, Kibbe said.

“Our students are really blessed overall, but there are many in our community who aren’t,” she said. “Everyone has rough patches. That doesn’t mean they are any less valuable.”

Being able to help get scarves and blankets for the homeless makes Myzshia Bryant, 11, feel good because they may not otherwise get blankets or Christmas presents, she said.

Fifth-grader Jason Long, 11, was working with another dozen students tying knots on the edges of the blankets.

“It is really cool to help people who don’t have the stuff we do,” Long said.

It feels good to do something that will make someone happy on Christmas, 8-year-old Nick Titzer said.