A week ago at Compton Elementary School, Georgia, something wonderful happened. Band students from Hillgrove High School arrived to hang out with and talk to the little guys. They wanted to make sure the school's youngest had food in their homes that week.
The thing that thrilled people was that this generous idea came from 17-year-old Nathan Jones, not an adult. Jones is a good trumpet (小号) player with the Hillgrove Hawks band. The idea, he said, came to him two years ago during a discussion about community service in a freshman leadership class. Serving the community was nothing new to Jones. For years, he and his family, who recently moved from Orlando, Florida, had been active community volunteers.
Last year, Jones thought it was a good idea to get the school band involved in community service, only for the young kids in the school. Band director Patrick
Erwin agreed but decided they had neither the time nor the resources to do it. "It got put on the back burner," Jones said. "This year, I decided to try again." This time, Erwin encouraged Jones to take charge and he did.
Back in August, Jones challenged the band to raise $5, 000 to help with the cost of packing the meals. Within two weeks, they'd collected $6, 000 in donations, enough to provide 2,500 family meals, including bags of rice, soy protein, vitamins and vegetables. By the end of the month, when poor families are struggling, a bag of food can mean the difference between a full stomach and an empty one for many of those students.
But HiHgrove's effort isn't just about feeding the body. It's about feeding souls, too.
Early on, the band's goal was to direct students' focus from getting "likes" on social media to building relationships with the people around them. So the band decided on the message, "What the world needs now is love, not likes" for its half-time show.
"That means actually going into the community and actually showing love," Jones said. "We're going out and doing what we're telling people to do."
