Our Community Project- InStill Life Creating Global Citizens

Through a planned curriculum, the grade 5 students first look at food and its history. The olive is used as a time travel vehicle to give students an understanding and appreciation of food. Then the students take fruits and vegetables and are taught how to create still life paintings of the food after which they make soups and fruit salad to eat together.

The paintings created are converted into cards and are sold by the students into the community at farmer's markets and through parents. The funds raised are then processed as microloans through KIVA and we are looking at the Rotary MicroLending Facility being developed.

Before the students lend the money out, they play a game that was developed to get the students to study the lending options from around the world and weigh the options of loans to various individuals.

As can be seen, this project encompasses many of the ideals of Rotary and combines a community project helping local kids with an international microlending element.