This year at Somerset-Berkley Regional High School, the Art Foundations classes and Ceramics classes collaborated with Mrs. Nassiff and Mrs. Bolduc.  In an interview with Ms. Bowers (teacher of Ceramics classes), she stated that the premise of the project was that when Mrs. Nassiff collects her food baskets for people in need in the community, “the missing piece is fresh vegetables, fruits, meats, cheese, and bread that you can’t put in a box because they’re perishable.”  This project was carried out in order to generate money to buy “grocery gift cards so that families can go to the grocery store and buy those perishable items along with the food baskets they get from Mrs. Nassiff.”  However, this project was also used to give students the chance to connect with something outside of themselves.  Somerset and Berkley are both moderately affluent communities and its residents should be grateful, for there are many communities that are in dire need.  For example, the 2013 poverty rate was 14.5 percent in the United States.  In 2013, there were 45.3 million people living in poverty and 14.7 million in children living in poverty.

The Art Foundations and Ceramics classes watched a documentary in class called Poor Kids which is narrated by children.  The children display their views on what it is like to live below the poverty line–experiencing starvation and homelessness–something no child should have to go through.  Mrs. Bowers explained that with the new food policy that has been in effect since the opening of the new school last year, kids will come into class and complain that they are starving since they are not allowed to eat in the classrooms.  Students are forced to eat before school, during their lunch block, or after school and often come into the classroom complaining of how hungry they are.  “What does it really mean?” asks Mrs. Bowers.  “We don’t exactly know what it feels like to be hungry.”

This project conducted by the Art Department and Guidance Counselors, Mrs. Nassiff and Mrs. Bolduc, allowed for students to enter a larger world and get a glimpse of what life is like for people of less fortune than themselves.  Students made ornaments out of clay to sell for the grocery gift cards.  These ornaments went on sale at Auclair’s on County Street on Sunday, 22 November for $5 each.  They have raised over $700 so far, and the numbers are still climbing.  Somerset-Berkley Regional High School continues to make changes in the community one step at a time.