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WYNOT — A service-learning effort at Wynot Public School has students turning classroom lessons into hands-on community outreach — from cooking meals for seniors to collecting thousands of plastic bags to help people experiencing homelessness.
Family and Consumer Sciences teacher Julie Lamoureux began taking culinary and nutrition students to the Wakefield Senior Center each semester to prepare and serve a homemade meal. The idea grew after Lamoureux learned the center no longer had a cook and was having meals prepared by alocal restaurant. With support from Wynot administrators, the trips have become apopular tradition.
Wakefield holds personal meaning for Lamoureux, who grew up there. Her father, grandmother and many former teachers and neighbors still live in town and now eat at the senior center. Visiting students often serve people who once played a role in their teacher’s upbringing.
Another project — collecting plastic bags to create sleeping mats for people experiencing homelessness — also began with a conversation in Wakefield. Lamoureux’s grandmother volunteers with a church group that weaves the bags into lightweight, portable mats. Inspired by the effort, Lamoureux challenged Wynot students and teachers to collect as many bags as possible, offering a pizza party to the class with the highest total.
The challenge quickly took off. In the first week, students gathered nearly 4,000 bags. Teachers worked the effort into math and science lessons, counting and tracking totals. Students regularly dropped off bags labeled with tallies from classrooms, and some even took a walking field trip to collect more. A poster inside the school tracked each class’s progress and became a regular stop for students eager to see who was in the lead.
Within a month, Wynot students had collected 16,332 bags — enough to create approximately 32 sleeping mats, which will be distributed to people in Norfolk, Lincoln, Omaha and other places across the U.S.
Lamoureux said she hopes the project shows students how a simple plastic bag — an item normally thrown away — can spark conversations about homelessness while building academic and communication skills.
“It’s awesome that something so small can make such a difference,” she said.
