Seeall Academy Gives Back To Community

The Seeall Academy played a different sort of Cupid on Valentine’s Day this year. Two fourth grade classes each collected 100 cans, in honor of the 100^th day of school, and delivered the goods to Reaching Out Community Services on February 14.

The collecting efforts swept across the whole school and even outwards, as Key Food decided to join the efforts and also donate 100 cans to Reaching Out, a food pantry located on New Utrecht Avenue that serves 4,100 families in 15 different zip codes.

“What a better way to connect this idea to the real world than through community service on a day when people traditionally share their hearts, our students shared their hearts with their own community in an effort to make the place where they live better,” explained Rosanna Giannuzzi, one of the fourth grade teachers who started the food drive initiative.

Lynette Azar, the United Federations of Teachers (UFT) representative and teacher at See All, echoed Giannuzzi’s sentiments, adding, “It [donating to Reaching Out] gives them a feeling a self-worth, [which] is important. This sort of innate value doesn’t come every day in school.”

The donations that the students collected took on a deeper meaning as they made bar graphs to chart the number of cans and soon watched it swell to meet and exceed their goals, Giannuzzi proudly explained. Giannuzzi also described how academic lessons for the classes centered on the activity, teaching the kids the definition of a leader and a community.

Thomas Neve, founder of Reaching Out, expressed his gratitude towards the children for giving back to the community saying, “This [school food drives] is what prevents us from not taking in new people and cutting people off [when the pantry runs low on food].”

The trip ended with a visit from Councilmember Vincent Gentile who congratulated the students on being leaders for the neighborhood, pronouncing, “You [the students] teach all of us about love on Valentine’s Day. You can express love in many ways. One of the best ways to express love is to give [back to the community]. I say congratulations and thank you.”