Students come together to fight hunger during Global Youth Service Day

Written by Kara Dunford
Communications Intern

Tonight, 17 million children in the United States will go to bed hungry.

This statistic is one of the many that DC SCORES teams from Seaton Elementary School and Thomson Elementary School learned last Friday as part of Global Youth Service Day.

To celebrate the day, children in over 135 countries serve their communities and learn about the world’s most pressing issues. Together with Youth Service America and Sodexo Foundation volunteers, DC SCORES highlighted the work of the Seaton Stingers and Thomson Tigers in understanding childhood hunger through an afternoon of fun activities.

To kick things off, students came together to talk about what it feels like to be hungry.

“You get an ear infection,” offered one student.

While the response provoked a bit of laughter, his answer pointed to the wider effects of hunger - both mental and physical - that are nothing to smile about.

The day’s activities promoted a message of healthy eating and physical activity. Students were divided into teams and rotated through various stations, including a trail mix making station provided by Sodexo that proved to be a hit with the students, and physical fitness stations that challenged the students to show off their athletic skills.

“We’re having fun, but we’re also learning about children who don’t have food,” said Johana S., a fourth-grade student at Thomson.

One of the most powerful stations for me was the arts and crafts table, where students had the chance to design posters to hang in their schools that presented facts about hunger. Though it may seem like a small solution to a large problem, the poster-making project achieved a two-fold purpose: community awareness and action, two central components of the DC SCORES spring service-learning curriculum.

The project made the Stingers and the Tigers aware of the facts about hunger and empowered them to do something about it.

For more sights and sounds of the day and to hear from the students, watch the video above and here. Be sure to stay tuned this spring as elementary and middle schools across the city design and implement service-learning projects!

View Global Youth Service Day photos here.