Worthing High School’s Linked Learning students gave back this holiday season in both a meaningful and educational way during their annual Serving Sunnyside community project event — a two-day event that includes collecting food items, a hot meal food drive, and educational resources aimed to create a healthier and safe neighborhood.

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For the first part of the community project, students and staff partnered up with the Houston Food Bank and Urban League to host a food drive on Nov. 20. The following day, food and monetary donations collected were used to make hot meals to serve to residents living throughout the Sunnyside neighborhood.

Worthing students also conducted research and were able to identify problems within the community. As a result, students chose topics on improving health and safety within the Sunnyside community and provided information to over 300 attendees at the event.

In addition, the project also served as the Linked Learning semester project and used a service learning rubric, which is a method that combines academic instruction, meaningful service, and critical reflective thinking to enhance student learning and civic responsibility. Linked Learning students are taught through work activities and choose a career subject of study based on their interests and abilities. Also referred to as a pathway, the career subject will guide future work-based learning opportunities.