LAES Students Learn Every Little Bit Counts!

Lipscomb Academy Elementary School students learned that every little bit counts when everyone is involved and were able to make a huge impact on children they have never even met.

“Coins for a Cause” is a service learning project developed by Lipscomb Academy Elementary faculty and staff in conjunction with the Directors of Spiritual Formation.  The program asked the elementary school students to collect coins and donate them to Mission Lazarus to be used to help children in Honduras.

Mission Lazarus is a Nashville based organization that offers educational, medical, agricultural and spiritual outreach in Honduras and Haiti.  HYPERLINK "http://www.missionlazarus.org" www.missionlazarus.org

Each of the Lipscomb Academy elementary school students were given their own water bottle to collect coins in and they brought what they collected to add to a large jug that was placed in each of the classrooms.  The students were given one month to go and serve their families and neighbors and ask for a donation towards ‘Coins for a Cause'.  At the end of the collection period all of the coins from the individual classrooms were combined.

“What you guys do is important, it is very important. The children in Honduras, by the time they are eight years old, they are milking cows and working in the fields.  You guys have collected change and maybe you thought it wasn’t that big of a deal, but it was.  You have made it possible for other kids to get a good education,” said Jarrod Brown, President and Founder of Mission Lazarus, when he spoke to Lipscomb Academy Elementary School students about their efforts.

At an assembly held during elementary school chapel, the total amount, $4,387.84 was revealed to the students. A check was presented to Brown by Elementary Principal Jonathan Sheahen, who took the funds to Mission Lazarus to be used in Honduras.

Through this service-learning project, the Lipscomb Academy students were able to learn about another country and learned to band together to make a difference.  Regina Lankford, a second grade teacher at Lipscomb Academy who has been working with Mission Lazarus for years, was able to travel to Honduras over spring break to do mission work along with Lipscomb Academy high school students.

Before she left, she filmed the elementary school students singing “We Love You with the Love of the Lord” in both English and Spanish.  She played the video for the children in Honduras. When she returned, she had a video of the Honduran children singing the song back to the Lipscomb Academy students.  The connection became real for the students who were able to see the faces of the children they had helped half a world away.