Local Preschool Gives to Eastern Illinois FoodBank For Annual Holiday Giving Initiative

This past holiday season, Chesterbrook Academy Preschool instilled leadership into its students’ young minds. The school has made an effort to encourage its students to participate in community service through its annual Holiday Giving Initiative. This program makes serving those in need a part of its academic curriculum.

Each year, the students choose an organization to give to. Organizations helped in previous years include local hospitals, Make-a-Wish, and the Crisis Nursery in Urbana. This year the students chose to give to Eastern Illinois Food Bank. The youngsters were able to gather 150 non-perishable items to give to the organization. The program helps the kids to see first-hand the significant impacts that they can make on their local community.

“I want them to be worldly and realize there’s more to life than what’s in their home and school because we see the same thing every day here. It’s important to have that diversity and see some people aren’t as fortunate as others. It helps us put into perspective what’s important”, said Chesterbrook Pre-K 2 teacher Sarah Webb.

Chesterbrook, which is located near Research Park, also hosted a food drive that occurred this past November. These experiences have helped the students to embrace diversity both inside and outside of the classroom. The school stresses the importance of introducing kids to community service so that they can continue to volunteer as they age.

Webb says that the preschool is hoping to expand the initiative to more than just a holiday program so that it can help more organizations.

Read more about this story here.