Three Oaks Elementary School (TOES) students know how to keep their hearts healthy.

“Cardio!” they respond in unison.

“That’s right – cardio! You guys know this,” affirmed PE teacher Nick Jensen. “Cardiorespiratory endurance is that big word we’ve been using in PE. You do cardio to make your heart stronger.”

TOES staff used the school’s Jump Rope for Heart kickoff assembly Oct. 9 to show students another way to make their hearts feel good – by giving to others.

“It feels good to give back. It makes your heart feel good when you give something,” principal Linda Sidone told students gathered in the cafeteria.

“We received a lot of great PE equipment because you all did such a great job with the American Heart Association’s Jump Rope for Heart campaign last year. Because we already have lots of equipment, our PE staff came up with the idea to partner with a school on the Eastern Shore in a Heart-to-Heart partnership,” Sidone explained to students. “We wanted to give back to some of our ‘family’ members – other educators who work at other schools.”

Sidone introduced the students to Kiptopeke Elementary School principal Subrina Parker and PE teacher Michael Brickhouse who were invited to the assembly to receive gifts of new equipment for their school – 100 jump ropes, 20 basketballs and 10 playground balls. Sidone, Jensen and several PE assistants presented the equipment to Parker and Brickhouse to applause by TOES students.

A similar donation will be made to an orphanage in Nicaragua when PE assistant Veronica Cash’s husband and daughter travel to the country in November to volunteer. “They are taking jump ropes, basketballs and soccer balls to give to the children because they don’t have anything,” said Cash.

She added, “It’s great to be able to give back to people who aren’t as fortunate as us.”

This is a lesson TOES staff hope students learn this year as part of their work as a Global Passport School, an initiative related to the school division’s new strategic framework Compass to 2020.

For students to be globally aware and compete economically with people from all over the world, “they need to have knowledge of and empathy for other cultures,” explained elementary social studies coordinator Megan Raftery.

“That has to start young,” Raftery said, “and Global Passport Schools are taking a look at what global awareness might look like for our youngest students to benefit the entire school division as a whole.”

Participating schools aim to build global awareness and provide instruction with a global lens through the study of existing science and social studies curriculum at each grade level. In addition to providing professional learning to create “global educators,” schools are “globalizing” their physical environment and looking for opportunities to make connections beyond the classroom.

“You can’t go global without going local,” is a concept Raftery said Global Passport Schools discuss, and she noted this idea is demonstrated with Three Oaks Elementary’s outreach to Kiptopeke Elementary.

Kiptopeke principal Parker is grateful for the new connection.

“We’re really excited about the heart-to-heart partnership and schools supporting one another,” Parker said. “It’s a celebration of Jump Rope for Heart, but it is also a celebration of a school in the city partnering with a school in a rural area with high poverty, providing us with much-needed PE equipment so our students can continue to remain healthy and have healthy hearts.”

Jensen noted that their respective school mascots make for a unique partnership.

“They’re the dolphins, and we’re the wolves,” Jensen told students. “I know it seems like they are unlikely friends, but we are happy to give something from our heart to their heart.”

Sidone agreed, telling Patrick and TOES students at the assembly, “We hope that this heart-to-heart partnership can be everlasting because we love what you do on the Eastern Shore.”