Eisenhower students volunteer at Anti-Cruelty Society

As part of the mission to become more involved in their communities, teachers and students from the Foundations Program at Eisenhower High School volunteered recently at the Anti-Cruelty Society.

“As the weather began to change, students began to voice their concern for the domestic animals that roam the streets homeless in the Chicago winters,” said teacher Tricia McCullough.

So the Foundations (a program for students with special needs) students decided to help.

A group traveled to the Chicago Anti-Cruelty Society, an organization that rescues, cares for, and promotes adoption for hundreds of homeless animals.

“Students worked together to make dog and cat toys to bring joy to the sheltered animals' lives this holiday season,” McCullough said.

Volunteering has become customary for Foundations as teachers pursue the goal of creating a “we” culture.

“The purpose of the curriculum and movement is to shift students from thinking about themselves to thinking about others. It shifts from thinking about me to we as a society, putting the better good of the community before the good of the self,” she added.

McCullough and her colleagues seek to build a classroom environment that will nurture social-emotional learning, develop leaders, and help prepare students to become contributing members of their society by helping shift people from a ME mentality to a WE mentality.