At Franklin Elementary School, the fifth grade mission is to “Lead with Kind”--to leave the world around them better than they found it. Every Friday, they work to complete a “Mission Kind” that helps to spread joy or helps those who need it, whether or not they are part of the Franklin community.

The fifth graders recently found out about a school in Pennsylvania that could use some kindness. It’s a Title I school, which means that at least 40 percent of the school's students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches, and the school receives additional funding to support and improve the education of low-income students. This particular Title I school just received a book vending machine (how cool is that?) to support literacy in their building and community. The vending machine would provide free books to all kindergarten through fifth grade students, but the school had no books to fill it with! Franklin fifth graders agreed that the students at the Pennsylvania school deserved to have access to high-interest books, so they organized and collected almost 500 books to ship to the school!

Penny Potts, a fifth grade teacher at Franklin, said, “On Halloween, the books were boxed and students themselves chipped in money to cover shipping costs from chores they did or their very own piggy banks!” 

The fifth graders also sent along homemade bookmarks. Ms. Potts said, “Empowering our students to serve is a life-long goal that will make them and the world around us better.”

(Pictured above, left to right, are Gavin Svigel, Maddie Schlut, Tyler Grantham, Ellie George, and Brooke Allen)