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Like busy elves, students from the Monocacy Valley Montessori Public Charter School scurried around the pantry at The Salvation Army's Fifth Street location in Frederick.

They carried cans of corn and peas, stocked shelves and dragged huge cardboard boxes filled with donated food to the "ready to go" side of the room.

Their goal was to ensure that 1,000 Frederick County families have everything they need for a festive holiday season.

"This is fun because you have all your friends here, and it is helping other people," said sixth-grader Devin Bailey.

Devin and 23 other Montessori school students in grades four to six volunteered to help The Salvation Army with their food drive this year.

Their teacher, Venus Elliott, suggested the idea because she saw an opportunity for students to put their classroom lessons into practice.

"We were talking about community service this year," Elliott said.

As part of their lessons, the class read an article about a group of students who volunteered to help poor families in Africa. Elliott noticed that the story sparked her students' interest and was inspired to get them involved in community service.

While community service is not part of the direct focus of the Montessori school, it fits within the school's mission and educational philosophy, Elliott said.

Developed by Italian doctor Maria Montessori in the early 1900s, the Montessori curriculum focuses on hands-on, self-guided learning. It steers away from homework or tests and focuses on the use of physical activity to understand abstract concepts.

"In the Montessori curriculum, we really want students to be connected to their environment," Elliott said. "We look at history. We talk about the fundamental needs of human beings."

Elliott felt that an organized volunteer project would teach her students about the need to help others better than any classroom lesson.

Elliott knew that the Montessori school raises money for charities every year, but she wanted to encourage her students to go beyond that.

So last month, she asked her students if they would like to gather food, sort donations, and work with Salvation Army volunteers during the busiest time of the year.

"I thought it was important for students to see where the food goes," she said. "In a Montessori classroom, it is very important for us to have (student input). I wanted to leave it as a choice to them."

She didn't have to wait for an answer.

"We all screamed: ‘Yes!'" said student Stephanie Letourneau.

Letourneau and her classmates picked up the idea with energy and enthusiasm.

In November, they helped organize a food drive at their school. They put up posters, contacted families and collected boxes of donated food.