Fifth-grade students from John Small Elementary School, as well as visitors from P.S. Jones Middle School, gathered in John Small’s cafeteria for a time of socializing, fun and a hardy meal.

This is the second year the school has organized a Christmas dinner, inviting special needs children to come interact with the other students. Down on Main Street Restaurant catered this year’s event, according to Lesley Holley, a fifth-grade teacher at John Small Elementary School, and while the adults handle the organization, it’s really the students who do all the work.

Holley said the students make the placemats, decorations and choose songs to sing together. It’s all in an effort to build acceptance for other children who may not be like them, and the fifth-graders want to give something back to their visitors.

“Math and reading are important, but the real world is important,” she said. “Growing up, you didn’t get to go to school with these kinds of kids.”

Chip Edwards, board chairman at Beaufort County Developmental Center, said the organization pitched in this year with a $500 donation.

He said his son is one of Holley’s students, so he was happy to approach the board about lending a hand. As the money was officially given to the Parent-Teacher Association (PTA), anything left over can go toward other projects.

“They gratefully assisted with funding this event,” Edwards said of the BCDC board. “It was well received.”

Holley’s passion for special needs children stems from a more personal place, as her son, Jake, is a special needs student. She said she feels it is important for them to interact with regular-education students, and vice versa.

Although this was only the second Christmas dinner, for at least the past five years, Holley and her co-worker Laura Horton have worked together to organize events like this for the fifth-grade students and their special needs peers. Other recent events include pumpkin painting this fall and inviting the special needs students to the end-of-the-year party and field trip.

“They love helping them,” Holley said of her fifth-grade students. “They enjoy it and they get a lot out of it.”

Sidney Selby, 11, said she has known a lot of the special needs kids since attending daycare at BCDC when she was younger, including one girl she has known since the age of 2.

Selby said the fifth-graders don’t usually get to spend a lot of time with the special needs children, so it was nice to have some time at the Christmas dinner.

“It was very fun,” she said. “I feel like some, they get left out a lot.”

Teachers chaperoning the event were almost brought to tears many times throughout the Christmas dinner. Holley said it’s incredible to see the fifth-graders’ accepting reactions toward the special needs visitors, and she even saw some of the “tough” boys soften up around them.

“They fall in love with them,” she said.