Students helped raise awareness about allergies during Halloween time. They created flyers to inform families and the community about the Teal Pumpkin Project. “The goal of the Teal Pumpkin Project was to spread awareness of giving out non-food treats for kids with food allergies on Halloween,” said Nathan Quinn. The students hung flyers around the school and sent flyers home to Columbus families. The flyers listed the Top 10 Food Allergens and gave suggestions for non-food items to give out. “It was important because kids with allergies might not go trick-or-treating without the Teal Pumpkin Project and more awareness means more houses for kids with allergies to trick-or-treat at,” expressed Gloria Babish. Charlotte Foti reported that “On Halloween I saw 3 teal pumpkins. That made me feel really good.”

One student noticed that when she visited the Little Free Libraries in the area, there was a lack of children’s books to borrow. The group decided to collect books in order to add more children’s books to the Little Free Libraries around town. Joshua Pereira expressed that “I felt happy and proud to help on this project.” The students collected 110 books! Salvi Tello reported that, “A lot of books were donated to the school. Then we counted all the books. We all took some books to the Free Libraries.” Amalia Weyant says “It made me feel happy because it felt like a very nice thing to do. Some people don’t have very many book and we can give them some.”

This group of students wanted to help individuals who were hungry and homeless. They asked students from the Columbus School to donate their spare change. The students collected $290 worth of coins. The money was donated to the Boston Rescue Mission. This money will provide 130 nutritious meals for homeless individuals. Lily Carmelo stated that “CCSR makes me feel proud that we can help people and families in need.”

This group decided to raise awareness about the Clothing/ Textile bins that are placed around Medford Public Schools. This program generates a rebate of $100 per ton on textiles collected. The money goes to Medford’s PTO. The group collected multiple bags of clothing/ textiles to donate and raised awareness about the bins. Charlotte Foti states, “I thought it was really fun to help people in need and get a lot of scraps… It worked great!”

This group decided to hold a yarn drive at the Columbus Elementary School. They collected about 100 balls of yarn and 4 knitted hats. They donated all the yarn and knitted goods to The Knitting Connection Inc. All the yarn will be made into clothes for families who need it. Abby says, “It’s important because yarn is being knitted into clothes that help people in need.”

This group decided they wanted to help children in need by collecting toys. The students were very concerned that other children might not have many toys to play with. The group collected 6 huge bins of toys and donated them to the organization Cradles to Crayons.

A High School CCSR student is building new Little Free Libraries around Medford. His hope is to put a child-created bookmark in every book! The CCSR students have been working hard to make as many bookmarks as they can! They created over 60 bookmarks for the Little Free Libraries

This group decided wanted to run a School Supply Drive for Cradles to Crayons. They wanted to help collect items that could go in donated backpacks for students in need. The students collected crayons, markers, binders, folders, pencils, scissors, erasers, paper clips, construction paper, and lunch boxes.

A group of students were upset to hear/see the negative video challenges that were posted on the internet. They decided that they would create a positive challenge for students the Columbus School. They created positive challenge lists for students in grades K- 3. They then awarded prizes to students who completed the challenges on the list.