Fifth-graders celebrate Super Citizen program by honoring their own real life heroes
MADISON – Hundreds of fifth-graders in Madison celebrated the graduation of the Liberty Learning Foundation’s Super Citizen program on Thursday at Bob Jones High School. Students in elementary schools throughout the city have participated in lessons since January to learn why it’s important to be super citizens in their schools and communities.
“The Liberty Learning Foundation is on a mission to make sure that you are excited to learn about our country’s history and the important role that you will all play in its future,” Jessica Quillin of the Liberty Learning Foundation told Madison’s fifth-graders in January. “After all, you will be the next great Americans.”
During the 10-week program, students got into “Torch Teams,” and their teachers led them through various lessons in civics, character, financial literacy, career development and American history. In addition, teachers helped their students understand the characteristics that comprise a “real-life hero.”
The Liberty Learning Foundation believes that “when you honor a hero, you become a hero.” With this belief in mind, students nominated and voted on their own super citizen heroes. At Thursday’s celebration, they introduced the heroes they choose and honored them with a small Statue of Liberty replica. This replica is extra special, as it contains a heart made of the same material from the real Statue of Liberty in New York City.
The honorees were:
Madison Elementary: Pastor T.C. Johnson of St. Luke Christian and a 21-year Army veteran
Mill Creek Elementary: Toni Apse
Rainbow Elementary: SRO officer Patrick Hamilton
West Madison Elementary: Jennifer Aldredge
Heritage Elementary: Macy Smith, counselor at the school
Columbia Elementary: Coach Kelly Fields
Horizon Elementary: John Patrick Hamilton, SRO
“It doesn’t matter what walk of life that they are from, what their ethnicity is, what their background is, what their socioeconomic [status] is—it doesn’t matter,” Tawanna Vickers, tour and events director for Liberty Learning, said following a kickoff last year in Madison County. “We all have the same opportunities and the same freedoms to be what we want to be and to do what we want to do and to impact our communities, which is one of the biggest things that we want these kids to walk away from this program with—to impact and change the lives of their communities in a positive way.”
According to their website, Liberty Learning Foundation has impacted more than 150,000 students in 472 schools and communities across Alabama since 2010. To learn more about this nonprofit and its mission, visit libertylearning.org.
