Hawkshop

HawkShop at Higgins Middle School is a partnership between caring adults, students with disabilities, and typically developing peers formed with the mission to engage in social, vocational, and community based experience with a positive, goal oriented focus that will meet a need within our school community and support our school values by providing students-in-need with access to clothing, toiletries, and staple food items. All items are donated by the community and offered free-of-charge to those students. HawkShop was started by a group of educators who recognized a need within our school community and found inspiration in other successful school based and local programs. We recognize that students have basic needs that must be met, and meeting these needs can improve students’ readiness for learning, attendance, social and emotional well-being, and confidence. Higgins Middle School is the largest middle school in New England, serving all middle school-aged children in Peabody, nearly 1,500 students in grades six through eight. Student participants are members of our Higgins Middle School community. Special needs students learn vocational and social skills as they stock and maintain the shop alongside of their typical peers. All are students who exhibit our school’s values and who are motivated to enhance their own learning and social engagement as well as to support their peers.