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Students raise money for tsunami relief
By Derek Hodges
Students at two Jackson County schools have been working to help those affected by the recent tidal waves in the Indian Ocean.
Alex Briggs, 12, and Alee Shurina, 11, both sixth-graders at Cullowhee Valley School, launched a schoolwide effort to raise money for victims of the tsunami.
Cullowhee Valley School sixth-graders Alex Briggs, center, and Alee Shurina, right, made posters and fliers to encourage students to give to an effort the girls led to raise money for victims of the tsunami in Southeast Asia. The girls, assisted by school guidance counselor Karen Clarke, left, raised $3,194.59 as of Feb. 7. – Herald photo by Derek Hodges
Shurina and Briggs each had their own reasons for wanting to do something to help.
Two days before the waves killed hundreds of thousands of people, Briggs had dinner with a man from India, one of the affected countries. Concern for his family back home brought the impact of the disaster home for her, Briggs said.
Discussions with her family about the tsunami sparked Shurina's concern.
"A lot of the stories we had heard were pretty devastating," she said.
The disaster provided students at CVS who had been looking for a worthy cause a "good opportunity," said Shurina.
"We'd been looking to do something for someone for a long time," she said.
The girls approached school guidance counselor Karen Clarke, who also works with the school's student council. Briggs is a member of the council.
"They just came to me one morning and asked, 'Can we do something?'" Clarke said.
With Clarke's help the girls printed fliers to distribute to students and parents and made posters to put up at the school. There were also announcements on the school's morning news about the fund-raising effort.
Clarke and the girls decided to collect money in homeroom classes. They divided the K-8 into three groups (K-2, 3-5 and 6-8) and offered rewards to the highest fund-raisers.
The girls themselves went to various classes to encourage giving.
"At first it was pretty slow," Clarke said. "I was afraid we wouldn't get much money at all, but then things really picked up."
Clarke and the girls described parents, grandparents and community members making donations to the effort.
"I think a lot of kids here want to help and this was a great opportunity for them to do that," Clarke said.
As a culmination of the two-week effort, students were offered a "hat day," during which, for a fee of $1, they could wear hats to school.
"That's really popular, especially with the older kids," Clarke said.
Clarke and the girls spent several days sorting the money, then the funds were off to school secretary Betty Lester to be counted.
"It was a lot of money," said Lester. "It took half a day to count. I think that's just great."
When Lester was finished, the tally for the two weeks stood at $3,194.59.
"I am really proud of all the kids here and especially those girls," Clarke said.
Sophie Gatenby's kindergarten class was the top fund-raiser, with $633 raised. Three other classes in the kindergarten-second grade division raised more than $300.
The American Red Cross was chosen to be the recipient of the money.
"They said that all of it would go to tsunami victims," Briggs said.
Meanwhile, just up the road and at nearly the same time the CVS effort was starting, students in Margaret McRae's sixth-grade class at Blue Ridge School were talking up their own money-raising effort.
The class moved all the furniture from the center of the room and sat on the floor to discuss the waves and the resulting destruction, McRae said.
"We talked about the tsunami and what caused it," she said. "I was amazed at how well they understood it all."
The students agreed that, though some of them wanted to, they couldn't just pack up and head the whole school to Southeast Asia. Instead, they decided to issue a challenge.
The school, architecturally divided into "pods," has one circular section dedicated to the elementary grades (K-4), one for middle grades (5-8) and a third for the ninth-through 12th grades.
The sixth-graders challenged each area to raise $100 in nine days.
"We figured we'd be lucky to get that," McRae said.
As donations started pouring in from students, parents and community members, McRae realized their goal was a little low.
Thermometers drawn by one of her art classes to track the donations were expanded and a zero was added to make what formerly showed ten-dollar-increments instead indicate increases by the hundreds.
One parent of a pre-K student donated a case of raspberry jam and students raffled it off.
A third-grade teacher promised that if every student in her class donated to the effort, she would match their total.
"She had to write a very nice check at the end of it," McRae said.
"We were just tickled to death with the results," she said.
In the end the students raised $4,717.47 to donate to the United Nations Children's Fund.
"We chose UNICEF because of their work with children," said McRae.
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