Building Community Through School Projects

Student Council Food Drive

Longfellow students set a goal to collect 850 cans of food for the community food drive. They exceeded that goal by four times. Students and families donated 3,592 cans of nonperishable foods. It was given to the C.A.R.E. Partnership of Mesa who will distribute the food to needy families. Amounts collected by grade level:
Kindergarten: 274
1st grade: 359
2nd grade: 460
3rd grade: 527
4th grade: 378
5th grade: 1,067
6th grade: 447

Pennies for Patients/Pasta Program

Longfellow students collected spare change from February 2 - 27, 2004 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. The Society's mission is to cure leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin's disease, and myeloma and to improve the quality of life of patients and their families. Classes competed to see which class could collect the most money. Below is a tally of how much money was collected:
Pennies: 27,259
Nickels: 752
Dimes: 887
Quarters: 346
Dollars: 60
Total: $546.39
Students were very generous in helping those diagnosed with these illnesses and their families.

Paper Recycling

We are recycling paper to earn money at Longfellow. There is a special recycling dumpster in the front parking lot. All newspaper, scrap paper, old mail, etc. can be dropped in for recycling. Magazines and catalogs can be deposited as well. Please do not drop off cardboard or old phone books. Glass, plastic, metal and trash should not be recycled in this bin. Recycling helps reduce the waste in landfills and saves trees from being turned into paper. Please help by depositing your paper in the dumpster.

Travel Animals

Bearizona Bear is one of the Arizona Animal Ambassadors. He is currently traveling throughout the United States. Animals from the schools he is visiting have been visiting Longfellow. The animals visit classrooms and take part in activities with our students.

Buzzy B. Bugsley is visiting from Tifton, Georgia. He visited Longfellow during January and February, 2003. Here he is with Josephina the Gila Monster and Tomas Jose the Desert Tortoise who are currently taking a sabbatical from traveling.

Buzzy visited the Mormon Temple Gardens and really liked the petroglyph.

Larry the Lobster from Lewiston, Maine and Crusty the Crab from Baltimore, Maryland both visited in December, 2003. They ended up taking a trip to Utah during Christmas break.

Larry with his Christmas blanket

Crusty with his Christmas blanket

Crusty and Larry with the Indian at Wikieup, Arizona Trading Post.

Big Red the Cardinal visited from Lebanon, Ohio in November. Here he is meeting the Animal Ambassadors.

Postcard Project

We are doing a postcard exchange with schools throughout the United States and the world. As of March 12, 2004 we have 280 postcards from states and countries. We still need postcards from the following states: Arkansas, Delaware, Indiana, Iowa, Maryland, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming. If you would like to contribute to our project, please send postcards to:

PJ Garvin
Longfellow School
345 S. Hall St.
Mesa, AZ 85204

E-postcard Exchange

Another project we are participating in is an e-postcard exchange. We email a letter about our school and a picture from Arizona. We have received e-postcards from Siberia, Germany and Denmark along with other countries and many states.