I ventured out on my first holiday gift shopping bonanza this weekend. I like to get an early start. It took no more than an hour before my head was spinning; too many stores, too many products, too many people. It was overwhelming.

It’s easy to lose sight of what the holidays mean amid this frenzy of shopping … unless you’re a student at Lafayette Park Middle School in Kokomo, Ind. Staff members there challenge their kids to understand the power and need to give to those less fortunate.

And this goes beyond a simple canned food drive. Members of the National Junior Honor Society will sing Christmas carols and give Christmas cards to the residents of a local retirement home. The eighth-graders in Carol Deditch's classes made books to attach to teddy bears given to children staying at a local hospital.

And seventh-grade English teacher Nicole Mundy has tasked her students with researching charities and then creating a fundraising and marketing plan that they pitch to their classmates. The students then select the charity with the best idea and then execute the plan.

It’s nice to know that there are schools and teachers (and I’m sure there are many more out there) that are teaching students one of the most critical lessons of all time: the importance of giving back.

Naomi Dillon, Senior Editor