Great Depression soup kitchen comes alive at Vernon Hills school

The Hawthorn Middle School North library was turned into the Robert Collins Soup Kitchen on Monday as eighth-graders learned about the Great Depression and the devastating effects on Americans at the time.

Teachers and students served soup and bread to more than 200 students at the Vernon Hills school during the annual event designed to provide students with an understanding of the plight of the homeless.

"We wanted to give them an opportunity to experience what it was like to live in the Great Depression," said social studies teacher Kathryn Balmes. "We have a soup kitchen so that the students can experience what it's like to stand in line, commiserate with other students and kind of experience what it's like to sit around and have nothing."

As part of the experience, students were required to write a background story of someone from the era and wear period clothing while selling pencils, apples, toys and other items to make money.

"I really like it because it's not just sitting in a classroom. You are actually experiencing the situation and you get into character," said eighth-grader Lora Dohler, who pretended to be a single mother with two children selling pencils and potatoes to pay rent. "At the soup kitchen, we got a Dixie cup of broth and a tiny piece of bread and that was the most food that they had for days."