First Graders Learn the Gift of Giving

Verdugo Woodland Elementary first graders are discovering the real meaning of giving this holiday season. They hope to make the season a little brighter for 21 needy children and six families.

Montrose resident and Verdugo Woodlands first-grade teacher Christie Crahan had always been part of giving through her La Cañada Flintridge church, St. Bede the Venerable. She said she knew that there were families in need, families that could not afford not only gifts for their children, but also food for their table. In the true spirit of the season she and her family brought gifts and food for others. She said she knew what that meant to the families and how it made her feel. To her the season was not just about twinkling lights and seasonal sales but through this act of giving the holidays had a meaningful purpose, and she wanted to share this feeling with her class.

Crahan shared this idea with friend and fellow teacher, Barbara Simpson, who works at a Title One school in Los Angeles. Title One is a school that receives federal No Child Left Behind Act funds for having a large population of economically disadvantaged students. Simpson contacted the principal at her school, and together they found 21 children and six families that were in need of some holiday help.

“We have fatherless families and motherless families,” Crahan said.

Simpson arranged for the children to be around first grade, this way the Verdugo Woodland children could relate on an age basis.

“We told them the younger the family the better,” Crahan added.

Crahan had done a similar gifting project last year with her class only. This year, however, she wanted to expand it to all the first graders, therefore adopting more children and families. Her colleagues, Barbara Diekmann, Janette Draney, Jennifer Kingsbury and Heidi Moreno all agreed to join in and packages, food and supplies began to pile up.

Glendale Unified School District has adopted the Glendale Character and Ethics Project and its goals. The project has a Word of the Month that is usually displayed somewhere in the classrooms and on the sign in front of the school. Crahan incorporated this project by emphasizing compassion, one of the monthly words, into the gift giving.

In a letter she wrote home to parents she explained, “I feel very strongly that even young children can learn early to be generous, compassionate and can make a positive difference in the lives of others.”

The students brought in gift certificates, food and gifts for their adopted families. Crahan’s husband Sean, a retired attorney who volunteers in his wife’s classroom, has also volunteered to deliver the gifts to the Los Angeles school.

She encouraged parents to involve their child with the gift or food selection. Crahan felt it was important that the children not just let their parents do the giving but let them feel like they were really a part of the process. Parents were to speak to their child about what it meant to be a family in need and how it was important for them to help.

The project has worked. Boxes of food and beautifully wrapped gifts lined the schools hallway. The first graders proudly display the gift they picked out and wrapped themselves, or quickly explain the gift certificate they brought in. Many students took this project very seriously.

“I used my own allowance money,” Chandler Johnson said as she held up her brightly wrapped gift. “I wanted to get something for them, not my mom and dad.”

This is the first time Johnson had ever done anything like this and she enjoyed the feeling it gave her. She wants to continue to help a family every holiday season, to make this a tradition.

“Without us they won’t have a good Christmas,” Johnson said.