Building future leaders, one project at a time
Last spring, Teresa Randolph stood by when students at Chapin Elementary watched 33 monarch butterflies emerge from their chrysalis.
The students’ hard work last spring — to build a pollinator garden — had paid off in a flutter of wings. Rallying a community of support, the students tackled the crisis of vanishing butterfly habitats in South Carolina, one garden at a time. Randolph could also see the program she and teacher Jennifer Layton created in 2022, called Team Landolph, was making a difference in the community.
As the pandemic waned and children began to return to the classroom full-time, Randolph noticed a growing disconnect between schools and their communities. But at the same time, she was aware that her students — just fourth graders — were eager to be empowered to do something good.
“We built such a great community, and we really listened to each other and had deep conversations and solved our problems,” she said. Rather than resign herself to the status quo, she decided to spark a movement.
Emboldened by a teaching method in which students learn life lessons through crafting solutions to problems they identify in their community, Randolph found a like-minded colleague in Layton when they were paired to co-teach. Together, they explored how to implement a program with that approach for Chapin Elementary School. And that’s how the two began Team Landolph, by creating community impact teams, led by students’ passion for creating a difference in the community.
Their pilot project in 2022 was to create a home for bees. Over the course of a school year, the students, guided by the teachers, identified the problem of habitat loss, researched solutions, and rallied the community to create a pollinator garden. The project grew from a few plants to a significant community effort, with help from the Chapin Garden Club and volunteers.
Since then, community impact teams been have set up at three of Richland-Lexington District 5’s schools. Among their new projects:
- A collaboration with Fidelis Family Retreat helped launch The Unsung Heroes Club, which brings together students, teachers, and veterans over an informal lunch at Chapin Elementary School. Veterans and their families also got together for a cookout at the school.
- A sensory garden to teach kids the value of the outdoors and other green projects in partnership with SC Green Step Schools, Chapin Women in Service, and the SC Wildlife Federation.
- Partnerships with St. Francis of Assisi Episcopal Church, Bolands Ace Hardware, Chapin Garden Club, Fields of Eden Farm, Kalberer Construction, and the Chapin Jr. Women’s Club.
- Collections of 1,000 pounds of plastic to be created into benches for schools and diverted from landfills.
- Projects to make birdhouses and create toys for dogs in shelters.
- A writing challenge for the community that launched earlier this fall.
As Randolph talked about Team Landolph’s current programs, plans were being made to help clean up debris from the yards of utility linemen working to restore power to the region after Hurricane Helene, just after hosting a cookout for first responders.
Randolph has stepped back from full-time teaching to devote herself to building the program, which she hopes to launch in each of Richland-Lexington District 5 schools. Fundraisers, grants, and resources shared by various organizations, along with $500 from the Greater Chapin Community Foundation and support from Richland-Lexington District 5 have helped finance the growth of the program.
In the short term, these projects strengthen the connection between school and community. But she believes these projects also build the kind of character needed to create future leaders. After the butterflies were released on that spring day, the students in the impact team talked about monarchs to the group gathered at Chapin Elementary.
“The kids were able to see these adults learning about something they cared about,” Randolph said. “They watched adult learners learning, and then they also got to take on the role of teacher in that moment. It was powerful.”