4th grade class takes on service projects

Small hands with a big task were packing away the Salvation Army Family Store's Christmas items. This is one of many service projects Barb Witteman's class has taken on. They spend about 25 hours a month volunteering.

For her students, a lesson to pay it forward gets personal. Some saying their families receive help from the Salvation Army.

Barb Witteman/Teacher: “When they shared that with my class, it really brought the project home and they thought wow we're really helping our own classmates with this project too.”

Yiou Wang/Student: “I feel really good inside and I really feel like helping more when I grow up.”

The students served meals and made blankets for the homeless, wrote businesses letters to get donations for a literacy program, even presented before the school board and created budgets for their projects.

Kylie Schafer/Student: “It makes we want to do a lot more projects.”

And sometimes they just dust. Like they did for two hours the last time they were here.

Yiou Wang/Student:” It was dirty but fun at the same time.”

Kylie Schafer/Student: “Once you get out and help, you're probably going to be a volunteer for a long time.”

Tags: reporter stories, kelsey soby, k-12 education, salvation army, fargo, volunteer, witteman