Lesson in compassion: Southeast High School students make blankets for People’s City Mission

A Southeast high school teacher came up with an idea for the school’s Kindness week. 10th grade students are making it come true. 

The teacher says the lesson here is about making connections and supporting others.

The students are calling it the “blanket project”

They divide into groups to make blankets for the People’s City Mission.

English teacher Julie Kruger of southeast high first decided to assign the students several books that teach us to stand up for the little guy, and fight back against bullying.

She was inspired by that heartwarming story of the bullied 4th grader who had made his own university of Tennessee design on a t–shirt.

It later caught on, the university mass producing his design, and sending a further message about bullying.

“So I was in the process of ordering one of the t–shirts to talk to my students about people that are bullied and marginalized and how to rise above that, and then I was trying to think of a way to tie it all together,” 10th grade Southeast English teacher, Julie Krueger said. 

This project went a step further when they decided to make blankets for the people’s city mission.

“First of all it’s talking about how we can work together as groups, and it’s also showing us that we shouldn’t just see people in one light, but to see in multiple perspectives is what this whole thing is basically about, because everyone has their own individual story,” 10th grader at Southeast High, Wolfgang Sturm said. 

“With the blankets, how that relates to our kindness week, is they were a specific blanket, so they’re tie blankets, where we tie two pieces of fabric together, so it’s kind of tying in everything, to say,” 10th grader at Southeast High, Alden Zabawa said.

The play on words, showing us all what compassion is all about.

“You’re making something for them to make their life better, especially like it’s getting colder, so we made blankets for them,” 10th grader at Southeast High, Sophie Thompson said. 

Krueger hopes the message goes far beyond the tangible.

“To reach out to others, and kindness, to say that we’re not going to marginalize people, we’re not going to allow bullying, and that we continue to spread this young man’s message,” Krueger said. 

They made about 30 blankets in total and are going to present them Friday.

Krueger encourages other schools and teachers to brainstorm constructive projects that students are able to take with them well after their assignment is over.