Written by: Jasmin Baxter
Chloee Parhm’s dream was always to help animals, and now she’s fulfilling that dream with the help of her classmates through the establishment of Rowan Cares Animal Protection Club. Cholee is an 11-year-old gifted student at Rowan Elementary School. She, along with her other classmates, created Rowan Cares, and it is now available to all students interested in joining and learning about animals.
Chloee is currently a student of the Hattiesburg Public School District (HPSD) REACH Program at Rowan Elementary School. Reaching Exceptionally Abled Children of Hattiesburg (REACH) is instructed by Jerice Williams, who has taught at Rowan for over a decade.
The REACH gifted program allows students from 2nd through 6th grade to meet once a week with their teacher and provide necessary instructional modifications to increase student skills in independent learning, creative, productive thinking, metacognition, developing and maintaining healthy and enriching relationships.
"I have taught gifted students for 15 out of the 17 years I’ve been teaching in education.”
"With this being the last year of me teaching these fifth graders, before they go on to Hattiesburg STEAM, I do what’s called an ‘interest inventory’ which allows me to analyze their interests to decide on what individualized projects we can do in class for their last year,” said Jerice Williams.
Williams is very impressed with how many students wanted to join Rowan Cares, not only just in the REACH classroom but also throughout Rowan Elementary School. However, this year was a little different because Williams’ REACH students wanted to join in to support Chloee’s club based on her fondness for animals.
"I’m really excited about this club. So many kids, even Pre-K, want to learn about animals and how they can get involved with the club. It’s just a great opportunity to learn something new and to share their interest with other students because it doesn’t happen in regular classrooms where students get the opportunity to share similar interests,” said Williams.
Fifth graders Cholee Parhm and two of her other classmates Kyleigh Graves and Rileigh Roberts, who are also a part of the REACH program, began their vision by first discovering their shared likeness for animals.
"I have always loved animals, and I’ve had puppies growing up. I still have one now!” expressed Cholee, “When I started Rowan Cares, Rileigh and Kyleigh, and the other students in REACH helped me come up with the idea.”
The girls have such a strong love for animals, they decided to write a proposal to their principal and make the club available for all Rowan students. The rest of the students in REACH helped create flyers, posters and other fun materials and activities to help gain interest about Rowan Cares throughout their school.
"I’ve been in REACH since the second grade, and my favorite thing about the REACH Program is that we get to communicate with people and have fun”, said Chloee.
Williams is also very excited about how things are going with Rowan Cares. She is pleased with how much support she is receiving from the students and other organizations in Hattiesburg.
“We try to do one or two things a month. The first thing we did as Rowan Cares was the Animal Food Drive for the animal shelter. We thought it would be a good idea to put some things together for a donation to the animals because this is the season that animals are adopted for the holidays, and are then returned. We also plan to host a Toy Drive in December, and we are planning to host the Hattiesburg Zoo sometime next year”, Williams said.
Rowan Cares is about learning the importance of caring for animals of all kinds. Rowan Cares' goal was to host a food drive for the animals at the Hattiesburg Humane Society and donate additional pet food and blankets. The club has since gained over 80 new pledges from other students at the school, and Cholee is even more excited to plan and host events at the school for the remainder of the school year.
If you’d like to donate to Rowan Cares, please contact jerice.williams@hattiesburgpsd.com.