Amanda Reis' class at St. Mary's School displays the ads they created for Community Health Program. CHP's Ellen Lahr holds a poster with all their work.
This month's winners were twins Madelyn and Harper Pinsonneault, and Fred Gleason.
St. Mary's School invited the winners' parents to see the certificate presentation.
Madelyn and Harper Pinsonneault with their parents and CHP's Elizabeth DeMarco, left, and Lahr.
Fred Gleason with his mom and DeMarco and Lahr.
Driver George Bolotin, physician assistant Michael Jefferson, and nurse Naiya Patel talk to the kids about the CHP Mobile Health Units.
Students tour the mobile unit.
Madelyn, Fred, and Harper try on some medical accessories.
CHP's Ellen Lahr shows the students a poster made with all of their contributions.
LEE, Mass. — St. Mary's School third-grade students in Amanda Reis' class participated in our Junior Marketers Create an Ad series.
We contacted Berkshire County teachers and asked their students to help create an ad for our sponsors and the community delivered. For the next eight months, we will showcase ads made by our creative next generation.
This month, students showcased Community Health Programs' Mobile Health Units, which provide accessible treatment for minor sicknesses, infections, injuries, vaccines, family services, and more.
During the project, students learned about CHP and its mission to provide community support and accessible quality healthcare to everyone.
Ellen Lahr, CHP's senior director of communications and marketing, described the unit to the students as a "doctor's office on wheels" that can go to different locations in the community to serve people.
Several CHP personnel visited the school to not only talk about the organization and its mobile services
but also to present the students with a poster designed by Elizabeth DeMarco, CHP's web and visual design manager, which showcases all of the students' ads. The poster will be hung in the hallway of the school.
The organization also made one for the CHP office so staff have a constant reminder of all of the students' fabulous creativity, DeMarco said.
"These are great, and these are how artists get started, but they're also how certain types of advertising get started," Lahr said to the students.
The staff of the Mobile Health Unit brought one of the two mobile units to the school to give students a tour.
CHP has two units: the big unit, which has two exam rooms, which they call Bob, and the smaller unit, which is called Chip. The students toured Chip.
They explained how the units go to various locations throughout Berkshire County, including food pantries, banks, festivals, and schools to provide care.
They also try to be flexible with scheduling, offering services on weekdays and weekends when possible.
Lahr also gave a lesson on advertising and showed how a company's name, logo, colors, and imagery become associated with its identity.
Lahr demonstrated how CHP is celebrating its 50th anniversary. Through this project, CHP hopes to demonstrate its commitment to serving the entire community and showcase the depth of its services, including food assistance, clothing, community resources, and medical and dental care.
"Not only did they capture the fact that we obviously have doctors and dentists on staff, but a lot of kids focused on the Mobile Health Unit. There were also some of the kids really focused on the fact that we really try to help families who are struggling a bit," DeMarco said.
"So, there was a focus on food security, which I think a lot of kids may not necessarily be aware of who aren't in that struggle. That was an interesting thing to see, sort of what they chose to focus on and that was a big one."
Lahr agreed, showcasing how one student included a homeless person being taken care of by visiting the Mobile Health Unit.
Lahr and DeMarco also highlighted how the students incorporated CHP's signature colors, blue and yellow.
When presenting the winners with their certificates, Lahr emphasized how she loved how Madelyn Pinsonneault, one of the winners, incorporated a diverse range of people surrounding the Earth with the CHP van.
Lahr said it was very difficult to select the three winners — Madelyn and Harper Pinsonneault, and Fred Gleason.
When selecting the winners, Lahr was not given the students' last names and was unaware that Madelyn and Harper are twins.
Gleason split his drawing into four sections, each featuring an aspect of CHP's services, including the Mobile Health Unit, a dentist examining a child, a CHP worker giving food to someone in need, and a child in a doctor's office.
Harper's ad featured the Mobile Health Unit and a doctor asking a child if they were ready for their checkup. She also incorporated a heart in her design because CHP is "so loving"
Madelyn split her drawing in half. One side showed a child at the dentist, while the other showed diverse individuals around the Earth with a CHP van.
"I did that because CHP goes around a lot of different places to help different people, different ages and different sizes," she said.
"And I did the dentist picture because a lot of people can be scared to go to the dentist, but at CHP they're very nice."
This group of students is very creative and love anything that involves drawing. When they found out they were creating ads for CHP, they were excited because about half of the class uses CHP programming in some way or another, Reis said.
"They just loved the mission of CHP, of giving back to everyone and including everyone in the community, whether it's medical, food or any of those things they were really interested in that," she said.
The students spent a week researching the organization in between their other academics to really understand its mission, Reis said.
"These kids are so intuitive to what the needs are of the community, and I think that their pictures really exemplified that and exemplified really our school mission about making sure everyone has a place and making sure we can help everyone in our community. And I think that their photos really exemplified," Principal Cara Maiorano-Culver said.
The students learned a lot about comprehension, which is a big part of the third-grade curriculum, Reis said.
"I think that they really understood how you can connect to the community and learn about things in the community, and connect that with the academics because I like being able to not only teach them academically but also teach them things in a real-world about what's around them and how we can tie our communities into what we're learning and make that whole connection," she said.
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Gleason split his drawing into four sections, each featuring an aspect of CHP's services, including the Mobile Health Unit, a dentist examining a child, a CHP worker giving food to someone in need, and a child in a doctor's office..jpg)
Harper's ad featured the Mobile Health Unit and a doctor asking a child if they were ready for their checkup. She also incorporated a heart in her design because CHP is "so loving" 
