SAYREVILLE – After more than a decade of the program’s implementation, students at Sayreville Middle School continue to create their own wreaths while working together, forming connections and raising donations for the less fortunate.
The middle school is in its 13th year of donations after guidance counselor David Fischer introduced the idea of having students construct and sell holiday wreaths in December.
The money generated from the sale of the wreaths is donated to the Ronald McDonald House of Central & Northern Jersey in New Brunswick, a non-profit organization that provides food to ill children in hospitals, math teacher Jarrett Lampkin announced earlier this month.
The program is run by Fischer and Lampkin. Also involved are paraprofessional Coleen Mezzina, special education teacher Tara Reissner and history teacher Margaret Fallon, who is charge of the Community Service Club.
Since the program’s inception, more than $10,000 has been donated to the Ronald McDonald House. For the students’ work, the Sayreville Middle School was awarded by the organization in 2011.
Floral materials for the wreaths are donated by Jacqueline Julian through her business Jacqueline’s Florist & Gifts in South Amboy.
“These experiences cannot happen unless the generous donations from Jacqueline’s Florist & Gifts,” Lampkin said. “Jackie has donated thousands of pounds of balsam and Douglas fir branches all of these years. Every year, we have counted on her and her staff to deliver the branches to start our holiday season. We get thousands of pounds, they always come timely and they never ask for anything in return.”
“What stands out to me is the generosity and the fact that she [Julian] doesn’t want the spotlight,” Mezzina said. “She even held a bow-making workshop for us.”
“She gives us the best and she’s always available,” Reissner said. “A very kind, generous person.”
Using the real pines provided by Jacqueline’s Florist & Gifts, students turn the wire frames they begin with into the wreaths, which are sold for $25 each. Through the wreaths they created, the students $500 in December 2018; an increase $400 that they collected in 2017.
Paraprofessional Len Baiori, who has purchased wreaths for the past six years, said, “The wreaths are put together extremely well. They’re full and larger than what you buy at the store.”
Among the students who participated in the program during this school year were eighth graders Shreya, Aneri, Riya, Somayya, Prisha, Sanskriti and Diya and seventh grader Rachael.
“We started with the wire frames and filled them with real pines provided by Jacqueline’s Florist,” Prisha said. “The pines were sappy, but smelled amazing. They may have been sticky, but I didn’t want to use hand sanitizer after I touched them because of how they smelled.”
Many of the students cited the program’s objective of helping the less fortunate as the reason for helping build the wreaths. They also stated that they joined because their friends were involved and they enjoyed the experience of working with their peers to build the wreaths while working towards a good cause.
“It was a fun experience, an experience to remember and a good time to talk to each other,” Somayya said. “I had fun, except for when a spider fell out of the fern.”
“It brought a smile to my face and I had fun doing it,” Rachael said.
Throughout their experience with the wreaths, Lampkin noted that the students learn to work together and complete their projects by a deadline.
“Through this process of making wreaths, students gain unique insights about themselves and others,” Lampkin said. “Other identified outcomes have been conflict resolution moments, negotiation, collaborating with others, and asset mapping, such as who is most skilled at specified parts of the process. The students gain networking and resource building skills and they build relationships.”
“We had to work together,” Shreya said. “Doing it alone took way more time than with two or three people. And we prepared for any mistakes because mistakes are very likely.”
“Mistakes are not the be all, end all,” Prisha said.
“We had to get the wreaths completed on time, so we learned how to manage our time while making the wreath look good,” Sanskriti said.
Through the that relationships they build, Lampkin found that the older students became peer coaches and mentors to the newer members.
“We got to teach others how to build the wreaths,” Riya said.
“Not only were we helping everyone else, we made new friends with the new members,” Shreya said.
Once their wreaths were completed, the students took part in the sale of the wreaths as they collected the donations.
“We got to see our hard work pay off,” Diya said.
“It was perfect for Christmas,” Aneri said.
For their work, students in the project received a tour of the Ronald McDonald House while they were delivering the donations.
“It was a surprise from the employees,” Sanskriti said. “The tour was a really great experience to know what they do.”
“We were helping them help others,” Prisha said. “It made me excited to go to school.”