This isn't the first year for students at Oakdale Elementary School to reach out in the community and provide comfort to others. They've been doing it for seven years now, thanks to a series of grants from Learn and Serve America. It is, however, the first year in which the students have originated an idea for the Learn and Serve project without any outside help.

This year's project had the fifth graders creating a bear at the Build-A-Bear Workshop, writing a story about their bears and donating the bears, along with the story, to needy children. The students decided to make the bears during a brainstorming session and their teachers came up with an assignment for the learning part of the program.

According to fifth grade writing teacher Darlene Short, fifth graders have been serving the community for several years in a variety of projects, which include holding a senior citizens prom and providing a dinner theater for area seniors. But, usually, she said, a guest speaker comes in to talk with the kids about issues within the community.

"It was neat because the kids had the idea," said Short. "We kind of spurred the idea along, but they had the original idea."

In the past, the school has received anywhere between $700 and $2,000 from Learn and Serve America. This year's award was for $10,000, which allowed the students to purchase 87 bears, as well as clothing for their stuffed animals as part of the Learn and Serve program.

Short said although the students were given a writing assignment in conjunction with the project, the kids were given the option to complete the extra steps it would take to publish the stories if they wished to participate in the program. Only one student chose not to participate.

"It was an assignment that they had to at least get it through to the rough draft and edit it, but they didn't have to type it--they didn't have to go that extra mile," Short explained. "Ninety-three children chose to do it. We were thinking maybe 50 would. But, when they all took the challenge, it was kind of neat."

The stories were connected with the school's Character Counts program, which encourages students to display six character traits: trustworthiness, caring, responsibility, respect, fairness and citizenship. Each student was asked to write a story about his or her bear that included the following criteria: the bear had to have a problem, lose a character trait, five events would occur, the bear would receive a gift of a character trait (either the one it lost or another one), and the student had to explain how the bear used the character trait to make a difference in the world.

"The fact that it was tied to Character Counts was kind of neat because they would have a problem and they would identify a character trait that maybe they lost," explained Short.

All of the students had interesting stories that included anything from happenings in a make-believe world to school-related scenarios. Almost all of them talked about how their bear learned from the lesson and became a better person by growing from the experience.

Austin Baker wrote about a guy that was in the military who accidentally discharged his weapon. He lost responsibility, but gained it back after taking a class in gun safety.

Haley Dillingham wrote that her bear, Twinkle, lost her caring trait when Twinkle's pet died. She quit caring and then took out her anger and frustration by vandalizing school property. Twinkle fixed the damage and apologized for her behavior to earn her character trait back.

Kyle Ingram wrote about a bear that lost his trustworthiness by not telling his mother he and a friend were jumping on the couch. Beary's friend was hurt from the incident, but Beary knew he would get in trouble if he told his mom what had happened.

In Ingram's story, Beary eventually admitted to the incident and then tried to make up for his misdeed by helping his classmates, following directions and helping his mom. In the end, Beary's mom rewarded his hard work with a medal that reminded him to always be trustworthy.

The students received help with their writing project from Short, fifth and sixth grade Excel teacher Martha Wise and Vicki Alvey. Karen Whitten, a classroom aid for the fifth grade classes, also lent a hand.

The bears were given to Warrick County Child and Family Services to be distributed to children throughout the county "wherever they're needed," said Short.

Principal Tad Powless said he was very pleased with the teachers and students for their involvement in the program; "It makes me feel wonderful. The good thing about the project they just did is that our school improvement goal is to improve writing. So, you have both the combination of a writing project here at school that the students were extremely interested in and then you also have just the positive things that they were doing when they went down and made the Build-A-Bears for the needy kids. You combine the two and it's just a win-win situation for everybody."

But, Short said it wasn't just the students and teachers that really got involved; this project included several parents, too.

"Our parents arose to the task to help us type," she explained. "It also got the families involved."