At Hillel, we believe in giving back to the community. Over the past few weeks, the eighth grade has dedicated hours of time to doing just that. Teachers Lauren Sterling and Shelby Wallach dreamed up a project that not only gives back to the community, but also teaches many essential Language Arts tools. Thus the “Campaign for a Cause” project was born. In this project, students were divided up into groups of three or four to represent different causes critical to our community. Groups were then pitted against each other in an election-style competition, battling for a grade-wide sponsorship of their cause. Collaboratively, each group designed an infographic, a commercial, a press release, and various posters. Each student also wrote a persuasive speech, using ethos (the ethical appeal), pathos (the emotional appeal), and logos (the logical appeal) as methods to convince their peers to choose their charity. To help improve their speeches and marketing materials, a group of experts, including state representatives and other experienced presenters, were brought in to help students fine-tune their campaigns. After each of the three classes in the grade chose a charity (in the “primaries”), the finalists went on to face each other in the “general election” to determine the winner. Gift of Life, an organization dedicated to making the lives of transplant patients easier, was crowned champion. The eighth grade intends to advocate and fundraise for this organization for the rest of the school year. No matter the winner, every student in the grade exited this project with stronger speechwriting and marketing skills, and better knowledge of all the critical needs that exist in the community.