Collecting food for the hungry is a good thing. But something started to bother me about these food drives. I learned that in many cases the students were told that if they brought in canned goods they would get to wear jeans on Friday. In Catholic schools, where uniforms are the norm, wearing jeans on Friday is a big deal. What bothered me is that we are teaching children to help the poor, but we are telling them to do it for the wrong reason.

     At the risk of sounding like a grinch, another thing bothered me about these food drives. Donating food gives children a good way to practice charity, but it fails to teach them about justice. We tell them to bring canned goods to feed the hungry, but we never explore the causes of hunger. Some of those causes are unjust rules or policies. To change such a rule or policy is to do justice. For every act of charity done by a school, I think there ought to be a corresponding act of justice.

     Therefore, a few years ago, a 6th grade teacher and I developed a four month program to teach her 6th graders about justice and about doing the right thing for the right reason -- no more "jeans on Friday" as a motive. We called the program, "That's Not Fair: Teaching Catholic Social Doctrine to Sixth Grade."

     Through some creative classroom activities the students learned some of the main themes of Catholic Social Doctrine: the difference between charity and justice, the meaning of human dignity, and a basic understanding of subsidiarity and solidarity.

     Once they learned these concepts, they met with low-income people. These people told the students about the reality of living with little money. After meeting with people who were struggling financially to make ends meet, the children were truly touched and wanted to help. Their desire to help had nothing to do with wearing jeans on Friday. They liked the people they met and wanted to do something.

     The people the students met are considered "working poor," that is, heads of households who have full time jobs but their pay still puts them below the poverty line. To move the students beyond a canned food drive, the teacher and I told the students that our state, Missouri, was considering a bill to give an Earned Income Tax Credit to Working Poor families. If we could help get this bill passed, we would be helping the "working poor" people we met, as well as many other similar families throughout the state.

     With help from their teacher, the students put together a presentation to explain to the adults in their parish why the passage of this bill was important. Their pastor let them make the presentation at all the weekend Masses. After each Mass they collected signatures from the adults in support of their cause.

     We then took the students to our state’s capitol where they made the presentation in one day to 10 different State senators and presented them with all the signatures they had collected.

     One senator told them that if the bill passed, it would mean $140,000,000 a year would go to working poor families in the state of Missouri. We told the students they could collect canned goods until the cows came home, but they would never help poor families to the same extent that passing this bill would.

     Throughout this four month long program the students learned many lessons, but especially these two: 1) the reason to help others is because they are children of God, and 2) justice is just as important as charity.

     These students still collect things for the poor, but now they do it for the right reason and are willing to look at deeper issues.

     This program, "That's Not Fair" was so successful is this school, that we have printed a "How To Do It" book for other schools. Currently, 18 Catholic schools in our city are using it. (Actually it can be used for grades six and up.)

     If you would like more information about this program, entitled, "That's Not Fair, A Program for Teaching Catholic Social Doctrine to Sixth Grade," you can contact me at 816-231-0984, or by email at tturner@bishopsullivan.org.