A Thanksgiving Feast Put on by Gordon School Kindergartners

The four and five year olds prepared a locally-harvested holiday meal for faculty and staff while learning about about the Hope's Harvest gleaning project.

November 25, 2019

Morgan Winther works on his invitation, addressed to Dr. Noni Thomas Lopez, Gordon’s Head of School. Each child selected an adult from the school’s professional community to be their personal guest.

You’re never too young to prepare a Thanksgiving meal, or to understand the true meaning of it. The four and five year olds at the Gordon School in East Providence had a lot to be thankful for as they learned what it takes to put together a “Giving of Thanks” feast to share with the Gordon School community last week.

Each week, the children at the Gordon School have lunch with an adult from the school to practice social skills and build leadership. For the Thanksgiving meal, the children welcomed in Eva Agudelo from Hope’s Harvest, which is a startup venture that partners with farms while recruiting and mobilizing volunteers to harvest food from fields that would otherwise go to waste. Agudelo brought locally-harvested apples to the class and talked with students about where the apples came from and the work her organization does. The students used her apples to make a dessert.

Members of the Young Kindergarten class with their teacher, Nick Terry (left), present an invitation to Marlon Henry, Technology Director at the Gordon School.

In the days before the dinner took place, the kindergartners learned what it means to be thankful, they discussed what they are thankful for and then they delivered invitations to those people they are thankful for to share the Thanksgiving meal.

“This has been a wonderful experience for our kids,” says Nick Terry, Young Kindergarten teacher at the Gordon School. “From deciding on our invitation list to menu planning to sitting with their teachers today, our class was engaged and thoughtful and I think a true sense of what it means to be thankful was instilled in them.”

Eva Agudelo of Hope’s Harvest talks about her work with Rhode Island farms and food pantries as she shares apples harvested from Big Train Farm in Glocester, RI. Morgan Winter, left, and Marco Abbruzzese, right.

The class created decorations for the event and escorted their guests to the meal while sharing messages of thankfulness.

“At Gordon, our teachings go beyond academics; it’s our goal to prepare our children, no matter how young, for the world outside of our doors,” says Dr. Noni Thomas Lopez, head of school. “Days like these underscore what makes our community so special.”