New program teaches philanthropy in schools
Catholic Spirit, January 2008, Front Page
By Donna Poston Williams
Correspondent
“Philanthropy, like any important value, must be learned,” Linda Brucker, founder and executive director of A Legacy of Giving explained. “If young children are taught how and why it’s important to give to charity, and it really becomes part of their DNA, we could raise an entire generation of ‘givers.’ ”
This premise inspired Brucker to create A Legacy of Giving, a local nonprofit dedicated to teaching philanthropy to school-age children, as part of the curriculum.
“The story starts with my son when he was in kindergarten at St. Gabriel Catholic School (in Austin),” Brucker said. “He was given the assignment to observe a homeless person over time, and then write and reflect on the experience. The transformation in him was incredible. His passion to repeatedly reach out to this hungry, sick person living on the street touched our whole family. Then it hit me. If this one project could have such an overwhelming effect on this one child, imagine what long-term exposure to giving would do for many children.”
Brucker went to Judith Knotts, the head of school for St. Gabriel Catholic School, with a proposal: “Instead of participating in a charity project here and there, what if we taught philanthropy to our students as part of the school curriculum?”
The seed was sown and together, Brucker and Knotts formulated a plan to make it a reality. Working for more than a year, doing the research and recruiting local civic and education leaders, A Legacy of Giving took root.
“Becoming a generous person, a giver, does not happen automatically for most of us,” Knotts said. “We all need prompts and prods. The notion of incorporating philanthropy into the day-to-day curriculum at St. Gabriel’s was very appealing to me.”
Brucker said convincing Knotts to “put this in the St. Gabriel’s classrooms was easy, but we wanted to spread this into the public school system also.”
Using a successful philanthropy curriculum developed in Michigan called Learning to Give (www.learningtogive.org) as their base, and adding projects from a national youth organization known as The LEAGUE (www.leagueworldwide.org), and tailoring it to suit Austin’s unique personality, the new curriculum began to take shape. Keeping it teacher-friendly, the lesson plans were integrated into social studies and language arts and fit within the Texas educational standards.
“Students might be assigned a book about a family living in poverty, or a research project on the homeless,” Knotts explained. “Because we meet Texas educational standards, AISD superintendent Pat Forigone, was happy to join forces with us.”
The pilot program began this school year at St. Gabriel’s in the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh grades and several schools in the Austin Independent School District: Allison Elementary (third and fourth grades), Clayton Elementary (fourth and fifth grades), Kiker Elementary (fourth and fifth grades), Perez Elementary (third and fourth grades), Ann Richards School for Young Women Leaders (sixth and seventh grades), Webb Middle School (sixth grade), and Akins High School (twelfth grade). Forest Trail Elementary in the Eanes Independent School District is also participating.
A Legacy of Giving curriculum is divided into three categories to be covered each school year: classroom education about philanthropy, hands-on service projects and going to a play that addresses the value of giving and sharing.
“For this year we’ve commissioned Zachary Scott Theater to write and perform a play at all the participating schools,” Knotts said.
The kick-off to the pilot program was a canned food drive led by students for children living in poverty. Introducing “The Drive” at St. Gabriel School, seventh-graders Bridget Boushka and Drake Scallon, along with fifth-graders Allie Novess, Colby Scallon, Adele Aviles and Grant Diedrich, made posters and put on a skit for their school. They boldly reported the staggering statistics of hunger and homelessness in Austin.
“Here in Austin, 41,000 kids don’t know if they’re going to eat dinner tonight,” Scallon reported afterward. “It makes me sad to think kids can’t expect food on the table.”
“I know I wouldn’t want to worry, if I was going to starve each day,” Novess added.
“I’m not really surprised that there are a lot of hungry people in Austin,” Boushka said. “I see them on the street and it makes me uncomfortable.”
“Hopefully, these kids are feeling excited that we’re planning on helping them,” Adele Aviles said.
“I’m glad we’re doing this project. I think it will affect me in the long run, even as an adult,” claimed Drake Scallon. “When this is over, I will be proud that we helped these kids.”
“These reactions confirm what I already believed,” Brucker said. “Our short-term goal is to get kids more involved in giving. Our long-term goal is to actually change the way kids think about giving.”
More than 1,200 students will participate in the pilot program this school year and an evaluation will follow. If certain markers are met, the curriculum will be introduced into more Austin schools next year.
“My hope is that we will bring A Legacy of Giving into every Austin school, at every grade level and grow an entire generation of givers,” Brucker said.