Student Can Drive Raises Thousands of Pounds of Food
Thanks to the efforts of MCHS’s National Honor Society (NHS) and the Student Hunger Drive of Northern Indiana, MCHS was able to raise awareness about fighting hunger through its largest can drive yet.
MCHS has held annual can drives for years, but, after being challenged to get involved in the Student Hunger Drive of Northern Indiana by LaPorte High School, MCHS stepped their can drive skills up to the next level. Desperate to hit their goal of 5,000 pounds of food and trump their Johnson Road rival, MCHS’s NHS got to work developing incentives and strategies to maximize their productivity.
The can drive itself was announced at MCHS’s homecoming pep rally, where student spirit was already incredibly high. However, the excitement piqued when Spanish teacher and NHS sponsor Jennifer Gracyalny announced that, if the students brought in 250 cans during the first week, Officer Dion Campbell would get pied in the face on the morning announcements, and, if the students brought in 500 cans during the first week, his hair would be spray-painted pink on the announcements. The students met and surpassed these goals with ease, thus ensuring that Campbell would meet his whipped cream and pink-haired fate.
During the next week, students who brought in cans/money were granted a Jeans Day bracelet, which meant that they could ditch their khakis on the Friday of that week. Jeans Day privileges were also used as incentives during the fifth week of the competition, which consisted of a schoolwide first hour can battle. The classroom with the highest cans per student average was awarded a Jeans Day.
English teacher Michael Livovich, AP government and economics teacher Benjamin Volheim, AP world history teacher Lucas Snyder, and Japanese teacher Michael Tsugawa faced each other in a push-up competition that was aired on the morning announcements during the third week of the can drive. Students were able to bet on which teacher they thought would win the competition by dropping cans off in their chosen teacher’s classroom. Each teacher was also promoted on social media through hashtags thought up by Gracyalny. For example, Tsugawa was represented by #WorldLanguageWarrior. After a hard-fought battle and the use of several canned-themed haikus to pump up the student body, Livovich won the push-up competition.
On the Friday of the fourth week, students could bring in cans or one dollar to purchase cupcakes or pizza after school. Efficiently selling the pizza and cupcakes required the help of many NHS and class officers who were happy to help.
NHS president Karmen Halfacre was especially passionate about the project.
“I think it's important for programs like the student hunger drive to exist because it gets the future of our cities and country involved in their local communities and teaches them the value of service to others. It really gets the youth of our cities on board with making our community a better place and gives everyone a sense of unity as well. Our school really came together for this cause and it was awesome to see,” said Halfacre.
Winter sports teams also came together to donate almost 100 cans per team, and student council donated all of the Sadie Hawkins’ cans that they usually use for their winter can drive to the effort.
MCHS collected such a large amount of food thanks to its collective effort as a school. As Gracyanly said, MCHS “can only raise thousands of pounds of food with the work of all, not a few.”
Jennifer Gracyalny Takes Active Learning to a new Level
The foreign language department, which is said to be the “happiest place in the N building” at MCHS, is the home of Spanish II, III, and IV teacher, NHS Sponsor, Spanish club Sponsor, and overall ray of sunshine Jennifer Gracyalny.
If one were to walk by her classroom on any given day, they would be more likely to see students gathered at the whiteboard writing sentences in Spanish or passionately playing games that improve both their Spanish and athletic skills rather than sitting at their desks filling out worksheets.
Active learning is a large part of Gracyalny’s teaching philosophy, and her lesson plans are proof of that. “I believe students learn best when they are involved in the learning and try to implement that theory in my classroom as best as I can. By getting students out of their desks and interacting with each other and the material, the students remember the material better and are active learners,” said Gracyalny.
Gracyalny herself has been an active learner since elementary school, where she would “redesign lesson plans and projects to make them more interesting.” This led her to pursue her passion for teaching at St. Mary’s College, majoring in Spanish and minoring in French, secondary education, and English as a new language.
Those who decide to become one of Gracyalny’s students, or “sunshines,” as she so affectionately calls them, not only benefit from her thorough knowledge of Spanish, but the usefulness of the language itself. According to Gracyalny, “In the global economy we live in and the high percentage of Latino population in the United States, it only makes sense for students to study Spanish.”
This language is pertinent in making connections in countries aside from the US as well, and Gracyalny is living proof of this. Thanks to her Spanish skills, her “potential friend base has expanded over fifteen countries,” and she has definitely taken advantage of this. In her lifetime, she has visited seventeen different countries, with Spanish being the official language of seven of them.
Her traveling skills are also put to good use through Michigan City’s Children’s International Summer Village (CISV) branch. Through this program, she has been a leader of two delegations of eleven-year-olds in both Guatemala and the Faroe Islands. She is also the Insurance Chair and Junior Branch Advisor, and she has staffed a CISV youth meeting.
CISV is not the only organization to benefit from Gracyalny’s involvement; she is also the sponsor of MCHS’s NHS and Spanish club. Her belief in “community activism” led her to be the NHS sponsor and led MCHS’s 2016 Student Hunger Drive. This year in Spanish club, she plans on taking her students to El Bracero and the Pilsen neighborhood in Chicago. The club has already decorated calaveras (sugar skulls) for Day of the Dead, and they plan on partaking in many other cultural activities throughout the year.
Gracyalny’s positive force of dedication and activism in her many positions at MCHS has thoroughly benefited her students and the school as a whole.