Learn and Serve helps with Habitat Harvest Festival

As the leaves start to fall, the Learn and Serve class helped planned and run the third annual Harvest Festival in cooperation with Habitat for Humanity. The festival was Saturday Oct. 2 at Walker Grant Middle School from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Learn and Serve students started setting up the school at 6:30 a.m., worked the festival, and then cleaned up from 4 to 5 p.m. The students helped run all of the games in the festival. The Learn and Serve students also played with the children to make sure they had a good time.

“I really love the participation,” Learn and Serve sponsor Amanda Scanlon said. “This was our first event, and it really started out our year strong.”

There were pumpkin patches, hayrides, a haunted house, face painting, moon bounces and more. Like a fair, there was food and live music as well.

“I couldn’t wait to interact with the children,” junior Tatyania Williams said. “It was fun to decorate the pumpkins with them and go on the moon bounce.”

Habitat for Humanity is a nonprofit, ecumenical Christian housing ministry.

The organization seeks to eliminate poverty housing and homelessness from the world and to make decent shelter a matter of conscience and action.

The festival was open to all, with a small cost of admission. Children from all over the community came to the event, mostly, elementary and middle school students. The event was an opportunity for children to come together and celebrate the coming of fall. The Learn and Serve students earn their many hours by going to the event.

“I was super excited to help out the community and have fun with the children,” junior Erin Smith said. “It has a lot of cool games and that’s what we were mainly running.”

Carter Bank and Trust, Humana, and the Family Preservation Services of Virginia also sponsored the event along with Habitat for Humanity. All of the proceeds from the Harvest Festival went to the Greater Fredericksburg Habitat for Humanity program. This consists of trying to provide shelter to the homeless people in the Fredericksburg area.

Kendall Rayha said, “It was a really great opportunity for kids to learn about habitat and have a good time.”