Lower and Middle Schools kick off their year of community service activities

Stone Soup Day on October 6  kicked off the community service efforts of Gill St. Bernard’s Lower and Middle School students to provide lunch to the Senior Citizens Center of Plainfield once a month. During Stone Soup Day, each Lower School child brings one ingredient to add to the soup pot, showing that if each person shares a little, everyone can have enough. The youngest child, in the school traditionally throws the stone into the pot, assisted by eighth graders who have been at GSB since pre-school.  The soup cooks all day and is symbolically shared by the children for lunch the following day.)  The event is based on the fable of stone soup. 

Throughout the school year, the younger students make soup and sandwiches each month, which seventh and eighth graders then take to the new Plainfield Senior Citizen Center headquarters.  The children hold special "parties," "song fests" and other celebrations to mark various events at the Senior Center during the year.  In the spring, the senior citizens are brought from Plainfield to Gladstone to attend a special performance of the Middle School play and to have lunch on campus.

The "Stone Soup" program, which won the Grand Prize in Scholastic Magazine's Kid's Care contest several years ago, is an ongoing tradition at GSB and involves everyone at the Lower and Middle Schools.