Holy Innocents' Students Count Steps To Feed Starving Children

SANDY SPRINGS, GA -- “Finally, we have a chance to save other kids.”

That’s what Holly Innocents' Episcopal School third grader Dawson Radaszewski said as he walked into a UNICEF Kid Power kickoff Friday at the Sandy Springs school's campus.

Kid Power involves wearing safe activity bands and then syncing those to a special kid-friendly app. HIES students in first through fifth grades will wearing the bands this year while they are on the move.

What's the big deal? Well, the points the students earn will allow UNICEF to supply therapeutic food packets to severely malnourished children around the world.

Simply put: The more students move, the more points they will earn, and the more lives they can save.

Randi Aton, a health and physical education teacher who organized Kid Power for Holy Innocents’, expects the project will empower the students at the Lower School.

“When does a child in their lifetime feel that they have the opportunity to save a life, or the power to change the world?" Aton asked. "This gives our kids the opportunity, and they know it.”

Thanks to two generous donors, Lower School administrators originally purchased 376 UNICEF Kid Power Bands from Target, a U.S. Fund for UNICEF Presenting Sponsor. Then teachers and administrators became interested in wearing the activity bands, and now Upper School students in HIES’ Program for Global Studies may get involved, at least in discussions that are sparked about global service issues.

For example, Lower School students will go on virtual missions and learn about different cultures.

“Throughout the year, our Global, Faith and Service classes will study the children we’re reaching in the different areas of the world,” Aton said. “There are even videos on the app.”

The project will be incorporated into other classroom activities, as well.

“A teacher might say, you know you have to have about 2,400 steps for a Kid Power Point,” Aton said. “Then students can translate it into an equation to see how many kids are getting this nutrition.”

The food packets contained a specially designed protein and vitamin-rich peanut paste.

Lower School students actually received their water-resistant fitness bands on Friday, Sept. 16, to set the trackers up and get comfortable using them. The Power Bands are color-coded for each grade level: green for first grade, orange for second, blue for third and fifth, and black for fourth.

Third-grader Wyatt Maiellaro plans to wear his even during football games “so I can get more steps to help people.”

'Classmate Hollis Thompson, who actually received hers as a birthday present last July, likes the trackers because “I want to give to kids.” And Truman Gephardt’s favorite thing is “not that it counts your step, but that it feeds malnourished children."

Truman’s mom, Tricia Gephardt, identified the project as an example of Holy Innocents’ thinking on a large scale.

“The school has a new idea and goes for it, not on a small scale, but on a scale that includes everyone,” she said. “This Kid Power Band enables my boys (Truman and Ernest) to make a difference — to know that they have the power to move and help another child in need.

"And now they can envision a world that is bigger than they are,” she added. "We look at the map to see where the countries are and why they need help. And we can use that lesson closer to home and help people in our own country and community, based on the lessons we learn with the bands."

Students, faculty and administrators are doing the project collaboratively, as a team, which should take off any competitive edge. Students are also instructed to just carry on with their normal activities.

“We want them to wear the bands doing whatever they usually do,” Aton said. “It’s not a competition to see who has the most. We really want to see how many children our kids are impacting—how many we will be helping to feed others simply by living our lives.”

For more information on UNICEF Kid Power, visit www.unicefkidpower.org

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Photo: Peyton Whitehead carries first-grader Miller Tabler, who is holding a BFF, or Bears Feeding Friends, sign. Credit: Julie Fennell.