Garden Grove school’s ‘Gratitude Project’ helps veterans overcome trauma connected to war
By Tony Cabrera
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GARDEN GROVE, California (KABC) — Students at Murdy Elementary School in Garden Grove immersed themselves in a history lesson that is part art exhibit and part writing exercise thanks to a special program involving veterans who opened up about their experiences.
“The Gratitude Project” allows the students to share what they learned about gratitude from classroom interviews with real-life war heroes, veterans and refugees.
“We got to learn a lot about being grateful, about the veterans and their journeys, and that’s not things kids experience so we got to hear it and listen and we got to learn from it,” said student Jayia Tigner.
The students reflected on it all through art and writing and some even got insight from their own family members.
“I learned a lot about what happened in Vietnam and the war and I learned the troubles and the things that my family had to go through and other families had to go through,” said student Howard Huynh.
Sixth grade teachers Valerie Del Carlo and Mark Keller launched “The Gratitude Project” in 2015 and designed it so students can learn and appreciate the history that’s so close to them.
“Our school is right at the heart of Little Saigon and in April of 1975, through the early 80s, this is where the influx of South Vietnamese refugees, many of them landed,” said Del Carlo.
“There’s a lot that they don’t know because grandparents and parents don’t like to talk about painful things, and so I feel like it’s been our job to get them to understand where they’re from, the sacrifices their parents and grandparents have made for them,” explained Keller.
Vietnam War veteran Daniel Barlow has participated in this program for years and said it helps him live above the sadness connected to the war.
“For them to be in a school here in Garden Grove with the quality of teaching and education that they’re making here, it’s just wonderful to see,” he said. “It’s the most positive thing that has come out of Vietnam, for me, 50 years later.”
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