Manheim Township Educational Foundation supports the efforts of students and teachers to be active in our local community. The foundation believes that learning occurs not just within the classroom, but also by interacting with the world around us. Teachers and their classes have the opportunity to receive funding for community service projects that make students more aware of their potential impact on society.

These are a few of the projects that have received funding from MTEF

• Joan Rossell, Neff 6th Grade teacher writes: My sixth grade students in English class and community service clubs have written letters, created poems, sent "care" packages, and gifts to our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. At times our students have been connected with local soldiers as their pen pals and even an entire battalion in Iraq that discovered and captured Saddam Hussein outside of the city of Tikrit. Their army captain (who shared the names of his men who did not receive mail regularly) visited our classroom to personally thank our students for their kindness and good deeds.
  

  In a joint effort with a sewing club the "Operation: Freedom in Iraq" club members made pillows for our soldiers and children in an orphanage in Afghanistan that was "adopted" by our students and the battalion of our librarian's son, who was stationed in Afghanistan at the time. For two joint efforts involving our student council we did a school-wide project to collect school supplies for the orphan's school and needed items for the citizens in the local community near the orphanage. Unknown to us at the time the driver of this battalion’s chaplain was from Ephrata. He has sent us letters of appreciation and our librarian's son has come to our school and my classroom to thank us for being generous and thoughtful towards the soldiers and the Afghanistan people.

  Other school-wide projects connected with the local branch of SOS (Support Our Soldiers), SOAR (Support Our American Recruits) and the Manheim Township Lions Club involved our students donating, collecting, packing, and shipping soldier requested items for our military.

  Students have made and sent holiday cards and decorations. We have sent donated packs of red licorice with letters attached to two locations in Iraq. An employee of the Defense Intelligence Agency (who volunteered her time to reach soldiers headed to remote areas outside of Baghdad for duty over the Christmas holiday) literally went out of the Green Zone to hand the soldiers personalized packages as they left the Baghdad and wish them Merry Christmas.

  Through the years, our students have conducted Veterans' Day programs here at Neff Sixth and made posters to give to our staff members and/ or their family members who are members of the military. Our club members have made patriotic ribbons for the students to wear to honor our military, as well as pins for the staff member and their loved one(s) to wear and/ or braided bracelets.

  Through the years MTEF’s generous monetary grants have paid for supplies to help make the pins, posters, ribbons, bracelets, cards, poems, and shipping. Our students, our military and their families appreciate your support and generosity. A heartfelt thank you from my students and me is extended to all of you at MTEF for helping us.

• Sharon O’Hara writes about her Brecht 4th graders... Since the 1990-1991 school year I have been involved in a pen pal program with Calvary Fellowship Homes. Each year the students are assigned a senior citizen pen pal after the activity director and I meet and try to match up the pen pals based on their favorite pastimes. We write our introductory letter, and two weeks later we hear back. The boys and girls get so excited when they discover that their pen pals like some of the same things they do.
  

  Throughout the year, we practice our letter writing skills monthly. Every two weeks when the pen pal letters arrive the boys and girls can hardly wait to read their letters and share them with their classmates.

  Thanks to the generosity of MTEF, we get to meet our pen pals four times throughout the year. In October, we visit the home for a Fall Harvest Party. The boys and girls enjoy bobbing for apples with their pen pals and learning about their new pen pal.

  Our pen pals visit us during the winter holiday season for a party. We enjoy making a craft and having a treat together. The seniors love to see what school is like now, and talk to the students about what it was like when they were in school.

  We also host a Valentine Party in our classroom. Usually, the boys and girls share their musical talents with their pen pals by playing their instruments and singing songs they’ve learned in music class. Again, MTEF provides the funds for our craft and refreshments.

  In May we visit our pen pals for the last time at Calvary. The boys and girls help them plant flowers on the grounds, and we all enjoy a picnic lunch together.

  Throughout the years some of the pen pals have formed strong relationships in which the seniors are invited to the boys and girls home for dinner. Since Calvary is in our school’s neighborhood sometimes the boys and girls ride their bikes to visit their pen pals. Many of the seniors have been part of the program for many years. They tell me that they look forward to their letters just as much as the boys and girls do.

  Thanks to MTEF this program continues to provide learning experiences for our students. Thanks so much for all you do for our students.