CHAMPION — A Champion High School English teacher is turning a dying professor’s final words into a senior year tradition that has students washing teachers’ cars, mowing elderly neighbors’ lawns and stacking cereal boxes high enough to feed dozens of local families.

The “Make A Difference” project is an annual assignment for seniors in James Sheldon’s 11th and 12th-grade English class.

The project is inspired by “The Last Lecture,” a memoir by Randy Pausch, a Carnegie Mellon professor who gave a final, famous lecture about achieving childhood dreams after being diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer.

“In that book… it is a collection of wisdom and advice that he wanted to pass on because he knew that he wouldn’t be here anymore for his children,” Sheldon said.

Sheldon, who has taught at Champion High School since 2005, uses Pausch’s idea that people can inspire the dreams of others on both a large and small scale.

“In this project, what I want them to do is to realize that they have the power to make change in the world around them,” said Sheldon, now in his 21st year of teaching. “Instead of waiting for someone to tell them to do those things… they could choose what they wanted to change, or what they wanted to fix.”

The project focuses on making a local impact, a concept Sheldon said he draws from a chapter in Pausch’s book titled “Be a Communitarian.”

“I want the children to understand that you have influence to impact the world around you, and that you are part of a community,” Sheldon said. “If you have the opportunity to do something… then sometimes the best person to do that is you yourself.”

The students are allowed to define their own projects, which has resulted in 13 different initiatives this year. Seniors Brady Bell and Corey Thompson created “All Hands on Deck,” a project to connect with the school’s special needs students by making art with handprints on ceiling tiles.

“Everyone was going for these dog donations and helping with cereal… but we felt we could actually help with mankind a little bit,” Bell said. “We decided to take our special needs kids in our school and get them involved… to show like they’re also human, just as much as we are.”

Other projects tackled communitywide needs.

Annalise Click’s “Super Cereal Heroes” campaign collects cereal for the Warren Family Mission, a cause she feels personally.

“I actually went through stuff like this when I was little, like not having breakfast sometimes, so I felt like it hit home,” Click said.

Seniors Kaylie Faber, Shayla Jones, and Isabella Wilson organized “Paws 4 Cause,” collecting blankets, food and other items for the Animal Welfare League.

“They don’t get any government funding,” Faber said. “All of their funding is like, through donations… I think they have over 200 animals there.”

The projects varied widely. One of them called “The Last Wash” saw students wash and detail nine teachers’ cars on an in-service day. “Mega Man Mowers” offered free lawn care to elderly residents. Other students created mental health public service announcements, cleaned up neighborhood streets and collected blankets for an exotic animal sanctuary.

Sheldon said he is most impressed that the projects come “from a very personal place” for the students. The project’s impact, he noted, has spread beyond his own classroom and created a ripple effect.

“The two boys who started the project, they must have had five or six other students who aren’t even in my class, go and help them do that,” Sheldon said. “Their teachers just, you know, rally around them and support them in any way. It also involves everyone in the school… It just gets everyone involved. So that’s why it’s wonderful.”

Staff photo / Chris McBride
Champion High School teacher James Sheldon sorts boxes of cereal collected by his students as part of Sheldon’s Make a Difference project challenging his students to look to their communities and make a meaningful difference. Thirteen groups of students participated. The project pictured is the Super Cereal Heroes Campaign, which helps feed families at the Warren Family Mission.