Flying High With Millard Hawk Pride
A practice at Millard Hawk Primary School that met with great success and brought us closer together with our community and service organizations was our 9/11 project. In 2011 the community wished to play a special memorial role in the ten-year anniversary of the September 11 tragedy. Rather than mourning the day, it was decided that we would turn the day into a day of service. The school improvement team, consisting of diverse stakeholder groups (teachers, aides, community members, and administration) unanimously voted to parallel this initiative in our building. Each class was given the freedom to select an area of significance to them whereby they would work to give back to the world in memory of this anniversary. Classrooms brainstormed and decided where they could best be of service, often considering the special needs of those in their own classroom. The project encouraged unity, empathy, cooperation, and an ongoing sense of intrinsic reward. The students and staff then became a part of the memorial service held in our community park. Beside the police and fire departments the children held hands and presented their projects.