MOSES LAKE — Some Moses Lake Christian Academy students are getting a little different education this week. 

“We’re on our Extended Learning Week, where we send out groups of students to get experiences outside the classroom,” said MLCA teacher Tyler Tadema.  

Tadema was with eight high school boys who were breaking down boxes Tuesday morning at the Moses Lake Food Bank. Other teams were doing yard work for seniors or serving at Monroe House and Brookdale Hearthstone. The day before they had cleared brush at Moses Lake Christian Church and a team was slated to go help with the soup kitchen at Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Church on Thursday. 

“We helped clean up the weeds (at Moses Lake Christian Church), cleaned up the outside and already it looks better,” said sophomore Manny Larios. “We talked to the community. It was pretty interesting. They talked about what this does for the older people, for the people who are experiencing troubles with money. It’s been pretty fun, the experience of being with your friends and having interactions that you would never have if you were in a classroom.” 

This is the 20th year MLCA has participated in Extended Learning Week, said Carla Friehe, a volunteer who coordinates the program for the school. It’s always held the week before spring break, she said. 

“It started because we didn’t want to do the usual programs that schools are offered,” Friehe said. “We patterned it after a program at Bellevue Christian School. I met some kids who were (in town doing extended learning) and went and talked with a person from Bellevue Christian and got their requirements.” 

MLCA divides its classes into primary, which is K-5, and secondary, which is sixth through 12th grade. Extended Learning Week starts in sixth grade, in which the students do something called “Mission Moses Lake.” 

“They’re doing things like going to food banks, going to U-Rock Ranch,” said MLCA Administrative Assistant Sylvia Bodenman. “We have a staff member who knows families that have cancer, so they go, and they do yard work, move boxes, do whatever they can to help people who need help.” 

The seventh graders have a science-based ELW schedule, Bodenman said, with lots of hands-on experiments. The eighth graders have been studying Washington state history and geography, so they’re experiencing parts of the state they might not otherwise be familiar with. 

“The girls’ group is doing Leavenworth and Seattle,” Friehe said. “The two boys’ groups, one’s going over to Orcas (Island), where they’ll be crabbing and fishing and learning about that part of Washington. The other group has been in Spokane … They toured Gonzaga, they worked at Second Harvest Food Bank, they (went) to a museum.” 

Grades 9-12 pick their own activity, Friehe said. Some of them went to the Annette Islands Reservation in Alaska, where an MLCA alumna who lives there invited them. 

“It’s a cross-cultural experience,” Bodenman said. “They’re really immersing themselves in the culture, in the community. They’re getting to know the people. They’re helping wherever there’s need.” 

In past years, Friehe said, the students have gone to Washington D.C., Europe, and Mexico. The experiences they gain from the trips are eye-opening on more than one level. 

“I sit at presentation night and I cry because I see all the different things our kids have been exposed to,” she said. “It’s worth all my time and effort to get them out of the classroom to have memories and also see how fortunate they are. Because unless we expose them to people who don’t have it as good as we do, I don’t think they get it.” 

    Moses Lake Christian Academy students serve tables Tuesday at Monroe House assisted Living Facility Tuesday as part of the school’s annual Extended Learning Week.
  

    Moses Lake Christian Academy students work at the Annette Islands Reservation in Alaska.