Gulf Shores City Schools held its annual Give Back Day earlier this year and while most students instantly brought joy with their service throughout the city, the fourth-grade class has been working on their project since February and now they are giving back in Easter spirit.

For their Give Back project, fourth graders at Gulf Shores Elementary School (GSES) worked together to create 40 Easter baskets to go out to the Meals on Wheels program through the Christian Service Center (CSC), a volunteer-based organization focused on assisting the financial needs of "Pleasure Island,"— the communities of Gulf Shores, Orange Beach and Fort Morgan.

Meals on Wheels (MOW), according to a press release on the Give Back project, is a nationwide program that works to deliver "nutritious meals to seniors who are homebound" and might have difficulty preparing their own meals.

The release stated there are 113 MOW clients and 24 full and part-time drivers for the program in Gulf Shores and Orange Beach.

Janice Moss, vice president of CSC, said the students thought to do the project to help the "local senior citizens" and they decided on Easter baskets to go out with the MOW items. She said the students worked for "quite a while" gathering goodies and household products for their baskets, with the help of their parents and teachers.

"I just thought it was the sweetest thing ever," Moss said. "When we went to pick the baskets up from (the school) you could tell the children were so proud of what they'd done."

She said this project was "such a blessing" for the shut-ins in the area during the Easter season. Some clients called Moss to tell her "how much it meant to them."

The press release states the students also wrote cards for the volunteers who prepare and deliver the meals.

The CSC is constantly accepting new volunteers as it is run solely by a volunteer staff. According to the release, the CSC is "funded by the churches of Pleasure Island," a variety of community groups and individuals interested in the cause.

For more information, call the CSC at (251) 968-5256 or visit www.cscgs.com.