Nine percent. When 115 students were asked to rate how involved in community service they think the current generation is, on a scale from one to five, only nine percent rated the generation four and above.

  Teacher Amy Mahan plans to change this.

  The sophomore English teacher hopes to implement a service project called “Adopt a Grandparent” at the beginning of 2017. The project aims to boost morale at local nursing homes by visiting residents.

  “It started with the knowledge that we needed to work on nonfiction reading. So, I was getting some articles, and I found one about how this generation is lacking in empathy,” Mahan said.

  The article, entitled What, Me Care? Young Are Less Empathetic, states that “narcissism has reached new heights” and that “empathy levels have been declining over the past 30 years.” After reading this, Mahan was determined to prove it wrong.

  “You know, this is a good generation and they do care about other people. We need to show that.”

  Mahan decided to implement this in her classroom by letting students create their own community service projects.

  “We started off by reading the article, and then we talked about it a little bit. I gave the students a couple of period to plan with partners. I kind of just let it be a project of passion,” Mahan said.

  The students had to present the idea for their project to their class. Then each class period voted on their favorite project. Finally, all of Mahan’s classes voted on one winner: Adopt a Grandparent.

  “Basically, we’ll be going into nursing homes and visiting with the people who may or may not get visitors and just boosting morale in general,”  Mahan said.

  Other proposed ideas included things like anti-bullying campaigns or starting a garden to grow flowers for hospital patients.

  Mahan hopes that all of her students (and maybe even those outside of her classes) will help with the project.

  “I think that the only hindrances are going to be that you can’t have any sort of record in order to go into a nursing home,” Mahan said with a laugh. “Hopefully that won’t eliminate many people, but you never know.”

  She also plans to offer incentives to students who aren’t “intrinsically motivated” to help such as extra points on assignments or homework passes.

  Even if the project doesn’t work out this year, Mahan still plans to do more projects in the coming years.

  “I hope that all of my students will look back and see this as one of the most valuable lessons that they learned in this class,” Mahan said.