CARE project of Wittekind-Gymnasium in Germany supports families in need

Spekulatius, gingerbread and dominoes, noodles, rice and tomato sauce, chocolates, biscuits, chocolate and gummy bears - but also hand washing cream, body lotion and shower gel. The pupils of the Wittekind-Gymnasium in Lübbecke were imaginative and highly motivated in this year's 'Christmas donation' campaign and packed around 50 large Christmas parcels for the Lübbecker Land Tafel.

As part of the Erasmus+ project CARE, which aims to raise pupils' awareness of social commitment, the whole pupil and teacher body was called upon to donate food and hygiene products for families in need. For this purpose, each class and each upper school course received a large open box, donated by the company Edeka Hartmann, which had to be filled. Some classes could not manage with this and needed additional boxes to be able to transport all the donations. Together with the participants of the CARE project, the supervising teachers Silke Horst and Jessica Stefener were happy about the great willingness of the Wittekind school community to donate.

At the beginning of December, the rich Christmas packages were finally brought to the “Stadthalle” Lübbecke. The members of the CARE project were supported by several teachers from the school, who made their cars available for the transport during their lunch break.

The representatives of the Lübbecker Land Tafel were impressed by the number and size of the boxes and assured the supervising colleagues Jessica Stefener and Silke Horst that the generosity of the Wittekind pupils, parents and teachers was a great help for the needy families in Lübbecke, who were able to receive their Christmas presents on the 2nd Advent weekend.

The Wittekind-Gymnasium would like to organise this fundraising event again next year and hopes that it will become an established part of the annual programme in the future.

Christmas Charity Portugal 2021

"Students, teachers and staff from ESFRL joined together to make this time a time of giving and caring. Several Christmas baskets were delivered among the school community and the CARE team participated in the solidarity Christmas basket of our school, which consists of collecting essential products to be delivered throughout the school year to the families of students with financial difficulties."

Christmas Charity in Poland 2021

This year students from I Liceum Ogólnokształcące in Toruń thanks to the CARE project got the very unique opportunity of joining numerous charity actions - thanks to the CARE project. Students participated in:

SZLACHETNA PACZKA

- https://www.szlachetnapaczka.pl/ (‚charity gift’) collecting items enlisted by a family in need. An annual action conducted by an external organization (nationwide). Both students and teachers brought gifts and money for the pre-chosen family.

ŻÓŁTE MIKOŁAJE - (‚yellow Santas’) 

https://zoltemikolaje.pl/koncert/ a project run by multiple high schools in Torun - students collected money (selling lottery tickets supported by local hotels, restaurants and shops; selling cakes and cookies at schools, selling tickets for the final grand   concert) The concert was hosted by students from I LO as well as the core of performers were our students (the concert itself was over 2hrs long and it took place at the main concert hall in the city-CKK JORDANKI) All the money collected was given to Stowarzyszenie WĘDKA - a charity organization supporting children and youth with mental disorders and financial problems.

CHRISTMAS MEETING INITIATIVE- CARE club from our school came up with the idea of suggesting to all the classes collecting money for a pre-chosen gift for somebody in need instead of giving each other tiny gifts during annual Christmas class meetings. 

On 12 November 2021 there was a car interior cleaning event by the ERASMUS+ group CARE at Wittekind-Gymnasium Lübbecke!

Parents could park their cars on in the large school courtyard and let the students clean the inside of their cars for a small fee during the school's open house day.

The group donated the proceeds to the organisation 'Starke Kinder e.V.' (www.starkekinder.de) which helps children in need in Burkina Faso.

Christmas Charity    +

(Prepared by the students from 7th to 18th December)

The students collected products to organize a "Christmas Basket", which was delivered to some of our students with special needs.

List of products:

Chocolates, cookies, sausage and tuna cans, rice, chips, spaghetti, fruit, olive oil, milk, cereal and also books.

The project’s goal was to help the needed in our school with food and books. Some of these products were provided by the group members who wanted to chip in and help these students.

A box was placed at the entry of our school so some students would also contribute to our project with food. 

GOOD DEED days in April and in December

When we started the distance learning in March and second time in November there was a common need to keep up the community feeling of school and soon our teachers and student council of our school started planning special events to cheer everybody up.

We were planning smaller events with Care project but in the end decided to combine them with the following two events organized in our school. The both two events included 1300 students and 80 teachers.

 Saturday 25th April 2020: SPRING EVENT online for the whole school

The goal was to lift the spirit in the new situation everyone found themselves in.

The programme of the day ( from 9 pm to 2 pm)

-          Students interviewing mayor of Jyväskylä city

-          Principals’ greetings to everyone

-          Interviewing Lauri Markkanen, a former student playing in NBA, USA at the moment

-          Greetings of MEP Henna Virkkunen

-          exercise break with a student and advice to have a healthy lunch for everyone

-          Interviewing Ville-Galle, a Finnish Rap artistThe rest of the day after this common program in Teams everyone was challenged to do something good for others. The deeds varied a lot: working in the garden, taking care of the family’s pet, spring maintenance of family’s bikes etc. 

Instructions for a good deed: "do something nice for your neighbourhood, own family members, friends, grandparents. It can be anything: bake a cake, sing a song, call your grandma, hoover the house, go to groceries for your nabour etc. You name it. Take a photo or a short video and send it to your tutor teacher. The photos/videos will be published in school site."

Erasmus+ CARE Poland - charity activities

As the members of Erasmus+ CARE club, we declare the well-being of other people as our priority. That’s why, we are delighted to take part in any charity activity. If we have a chance, we also love to introduce our own ideas when it comes to helping other human beings. 

The main event that we took part in was the charity fair in December 2019. It was fully dedicated to our friend - Jarek who suffers from leukemia. We had prepared the Christmas wreaths, and later we were selling them. All the money earned was donated to Jarek’s treatment. The wreaths weren’t the only thing that was sold during the fair. We had also prepared some cakes with the help of other students. Nevertheless, the main point of our charity fair was the lottery. All the students were told to bring some stuff they do not use anymore - old books, CDs, toys, stationery, badges, etc. We numbered all the things gathered and then other students prepared some vouchers. Every voucher cost around 5zł (1.25€), and all of them were the “winning” ones.

After the fair we also organized a concert for Jarek, and, again, all the money earned from the tickets was donated to our friend to help him fight leukemia. During the performance we had a chance to see a lot of talented students from our school, some of them were playing the piano, others were the guitarists, and some of them were singing. The total amount of money earned was around 20,000zł (5,000€). 

Another big event that we took part in was the ‘DKMS’, just before Christmas 2019. ‘DKMS’ is a company that gathers all the people that are willing to donate their bone marrow. Some students from our school decided to organize some special stands in the biggest shopping malls. They were giving out some leaflets about the whole ‘DKMS’ programme. Also, if somebody wanted to join the programme, they were able to sign up the interested person. The whole cooperation with ‘DKMS’ included also blood donation by our students at school.  

The last but not least activity that we were honored to take part in was the Amnesty International letter writing event. All the students could write a letter to various people from the countries all around the world, including Iran, 

China, etc. The aim of those letters was to emphasize the importance of respecting  human rights.