Clearview Elementary students spent time this summer on a service learning project for Anna Marie Alliance, researching the organization and creating learning and activity kits for the children there.

 

Anna Marie Alliance’s mission is to provide women and their children who are victims of domestic abuse a safe place to stay and resources to help escape the abuse.  

 

Before beginning the project, the students went to Google to research the shelter and learn why it’s important.

 

“When parents fight and it gets too dangerous, Anna Marie’s is a safe place for mothers and their kids to go to,” said Greta J.

 

“Moms and children come when they’re in a crisis,” said Nikita B.

 

Alexis S. added, “When mothers want to go but don’t have enough money they can go to Anna Marie’s and stay there.”

 

Clearview Teacher Andrea Coulter worked with second, third and fourth grade students to decorate paper bags for the projects with cheerful stickers and artwork. Fifth and sixth graders wrote inspirational sayings on cards to help brighten residents’ day, and then teacher Patti Clymer led them in an assembly line to fill the decorated bags. 

 

Each bag included two math games, a reading game and a craft to make. The supplies were items left over from previous Clearview activities through the years.

 

“I think it [the kits] will make them happy because in the shelter they don’t have anything and it will give them something to do,” said Kenna R. 

 

“I think it will make them happy to get to do something,” said Hazel S. “They probably don’t have a lot of money to get to do stuff.”

 

“We put in math and reading games so they can teach them [the children] some things,” said Jackson K. 

 

The students’ goal was to make 60 bags which will then be brought to the shelter to distribute.

 

The Central Minnesota Task Force on Battered Women, doing business as Anna Marie’s Alliance, is a private non-profit corporation dedicated to providing safe shelter, support and referral services for battered women and their children. The organization also works with the community on systems change and violence prevention.

 

For more information visit www.annamaries.org.