CHILDREN GIVE BACK
Annual walk teaches students values of character, service
EAST GREENBUSH, N.Y. >> Students at Red Mill Elementary School will participate in the school’s third annual Character Education Walk on Friday morning.
This year’s theme is “I’ve Got Your Back.” All the students and school staff will walk around the school, the surrounding neighborhood and nearby Hampton Manor Lake to raise awareness about demonstrating good character and giving back to the community. All students and staff will wear Red Mill gear and homemade “I’ve got your back” shirts to show school spirit during the walk, which begins at 9:15 a.m.
“The walk is like a little over a mile,” said Valerie Santillo, a first- grade teacher at the school and a member of the school’s Character Education Committee. “We have in the neighborhood where our school is located a small, what we call a lake, and so, from our school, we will walk out the back through our field and into the
neighborhood and then around the lake and back.”
Santillo said the goal of the walk and the committee is to help form positive qualities in students.
“Our goal is to instill those positive qualities in our students, not only in school, but also to instill the importance of it being brought back into the community,” explained Santillo.
The walk not only is a way to raise awareness about good character, the school also raises money each year for a local organization that serves the community.
“In the past, we have raised money for the Mohawk Hudson Humane Society, Make- a-Wish and Wounded Warriors,” said Santillo. “This year, we have decided to raise money to purchase a buddy bench for our Red Mill playground. The buddy bench has a wonderful history and will
encourage our students to reach out to those students who feel they need a friend on the playground.”
School officials said they have been looking to purchase such a bench for several years and that is why they decided to keep the money raised by the walk in house this year.
“The buddy bench would be a bench that would go out on our playground for children who feel that they need a friend,” said Santillo. “The idea is to almost train our students that if you see someone sitting on that bench, that’s almost their way of nonverbally saying I need someone right now.”
Santillo said the school asks each student to try to raise a minimum of $5, and said they have raised thousands of dollars in the past.
“In the last couple of years, the families and the students have really surpassed our expectations, so we’re really hopeful that we’ll be able to achieve our goal and get that started for next year,” said Santillo.