Lessons in living a meaningful life

Book, movie inspire Northwest students to conduct food drive

Published Wednesday, December 17, 2003

By Harold Reutter

harold.reutter@theindependent.com

Northwest teacher Darbie Mazour starts off each school year by having students in her business English class read "Tuesdays With Morrie."

"It's a good way to get to know the kids," said Mazour, who noted that she had 48 seniors in two sections of the class.

The book tells the story of Morrie Schwartz, a college professor who is dying from ALS and who is visited by one of his former students, Mitch Albom.

Mazour said Schwartz tells Mitch that people need to give back to their community. That book started her students on a journey that ended with them collecting more than 1,000 pounds of food.

Mazour said a passage from the book says the following:

"To have a meaningful life: Devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning."

Mazour said that one student, Jason Potter, responded to the book by saying that it reminded him of the movie, "Pay It Forward."

So Mazour -- who had not seen the film -- had each of her two classes watch that movie.

The teacher said she was inspired and asked her students "what could we do to 'pay it forward?'"

Potter once again spoke up.

"I said something about a food drive," Potter said Tuesday.

He said students from the two classes asked for donations from other students at school and also took two or three posters home so they could post them in various locations around town.

Potter said their goal was to raise a ton of food.

They fell short, but still collected a lot of food -- a total of 1,010 pounds.

That made students feel good about what they had done.

"It was great," said Andrew Kendall. "It was fun to do."

Students not only had to collect the food, but also had to decide where they should donate their food. Mazour said two students, Jackie Paul and Clayton Vinson, called around to help decide where the food should go. About the last place they called was St. Mary's Cathedral.

Mazour said the lady who answered the phone "had the sweetest voice" and also told them that the church's food program, called Mary's Pantry, did not have as much food as it needed.

Consequently, the decision was made to take the food to Mary's Pantry. The students made the deliveries Tuesday, packing the food up at the school and then driving to St. Mary's Cathedral to unload it.

Kendall said Mazour's class was about the third time he had read "Tuesdays with Morrie" at Northwest.

Potter said he first read the story as a sophomore, but said he got a lot more out of reading the book as a senior, when he is more mature.

"It all made sense, when you're ready to go out into the world," Potter said. "Everything came together."

He said he believes he will look for other opportunities to "pay it forward."

Mazour said she believes it is important for students to learn lessons beyond what is in books and the regular school curriculum. She said the students' food drive is proof of the importance of learning those other kinds of lessons.

Mazour also learned something that is going to alter her own curriculum: In addition to having her students read "Tuesdays with Morrie" each year, she is also going to have them watch "Pay It Forward."