Medina High School 1st Annual Chinese New Year Luncheon Fundraiser

Shasha Gibbs, Chinese Teacher, Medina High School

On March 1, all students who are currently taking Chinese at Medina High School participated in “Medina High School First Annual Chinese New Year Luncheon Fundraiser”.  The purpose of this event was to help students understand that they could use what they have learned from the class to help people in the community.

Preparation

• Students were asked to find a Chinese dish recipe they like and make it for the event.
• Students were also asked to make a card to show what’s in the dish both in English and Chinese, just in case people have allergies to a certain ingredient.
• All dishes should come with a creatively designed “name tag” in both English and Chinese to attract “customers”.
• An email was sent out to the whole building and all staff members were invited.
• Worked with the art teacher on planning this event, so that her students could make ceramic bowls in time to donate them to the event to help raise more money.
• Reserved the staff lunchroom.
• Worked with the head of the cafeteria on how to serve all 4 lunch periods without interfering with regular lunch activities.

On the Day of the Event

Students dropped off their food, serving spoons, napkins, utensils and plates/bowls in the classroom.  All things were categorized by class, so that students would get to serve their own dish.

• 1st period class moved everything to the lunch room.
• 2nd period class decorated the lunch room.
• 3rd period was used to do final checking.
• 4th/5th period class served 4th period lunch.
• Students who had 6th period lunch came and helped serve that lunch period.
• 7th/8th period class served 8th period lunch.
• 9th/10th period class served 10th period lunch.
• 11th period was used to clean up the lunch room and move everything back to the classroom.

20+ staff members came to the event and they all enjoyed the food and environment the whole time when they were there.  They also expressed that they look forward to joining us next year.

Since we had so much food left, students were allowed to invite their friends to come and have a little after-school snack with us.  That was a really good way to let more students know about the Chinese program.

After the Event

• We raised $150 and all funds were donated to the United Way of Medina County.
• Students did a self-assessment on how they performed on this project.
• They also wrote a reflection which made them realize that what they have learned in class really could help people in the community.

I’m very impressed by my students’ performance on this project for a few reasons:

• Everyone did this project.
• Most of the students’ projects came out with very high quality.
• Students were very motivated the whole time.
• Students all learned something new during the whole process.

This event made me realize that when there is a purpose assigned to a project or homework assignment, students are more interested and motivate to learn and also accomplish the tasks with higher quality.  I believe that the key to engage students in learning is assigning tasks that are meaningful to them.  This might be a challenge to do at all time, but we should still strive for it, simply because this will help students achieve higher in their language learning.  Isn’t this the goal for us as language educators?