T1L1 students from Hamilton Heights & Sheridan help the hungry

Submitted by Kevin Yaney

On Thursday, Nov. 5, a total of 213 Teach One to Lead One (T1L1) students from Hamilton Heights Middle School and Sheridan Middle School combined forces to pack food for hungry people in Liberia, Haiti, and Guatemala. The food pack was part of a community service project conducted through International Disaster Emergency Services (IDES).

In two hours, the students packed 10,944 meals consisting of dried vegetables, grains, and vitamins, which were boxed and crated for delivery.

T1L1 is a community-led mentoring program that meets with students in their classroom each week. The program emphasizes 10 universal principles needed to be a successful leader. Those principles are respect, integrity, self-control, compassion, courage, teamwork, excellence, humility, enthusiasm, and honor.

Hamilton Heights was the first school district in Indiana to adopt T1L1 mentoring in 2019. Currently, Hamilton Heights fifth- and eighth-grade students participate in the program. This is the second year T1L1 has been operating in Sheridan Middle School. It currently has one sixth-grade classroom participating.

IDES provides disaster response in the form of food, shelter, medical supplies and other necessary items worldwide. They have connections with compassionate services in some of the most impoverished areas of the world. Based in Noblesville, IDES has been a key partner with T1L1 to help provide students with unique opportunities to live out compassion for others in need. You can learn more at ides.org.