By CARL E. FEATHER - Staff Writer - cfeather@starbeacon.com
ASHTABULA TOWNSHIP — It was mostly pocket change for the students and teachers of Ridgeview Elementary, but for the people of Haiti, it will be food, water and perhaps a place to sleep.
Fifth-grade students and their teachers, Robin Hudson and Deborah Nanney, on Friday wrapped up a month-long effort to collect money for the Haiti disaster relief effort. Because their original focus was to provide fresh water for Haitians, the collections were made in recycled bottled-water containers.
Every student was challenged to fill a water bottle, said Nanney. Collections were taken every morning.
Marcus Ernst, a fifth-grade student, said they kicked off their effort with a schoolwide assembly at which the fifth-graders presented a PowerPoint presentation about Haiti. Students researched living conditions in Haiti and discovered the average life span there is only 51 years and that most people live on less than $2 a day.
To maintain momentum, they placed posters around the school and shared Haiti facts during the morning announcements.
Students also wrote letters to area businesses owners, asking them to consider donating to the effort. However, as of Friday, they’d not received any responses/ donations.
Some of the students went above simply bringing in pocket change. Jacob Holden and Christina Oros, first-grade students, went from classroom to classroom at the end of each school day to collect from teachers.
“I walked around my whole neighborhood, and my pastor at church made an announcement, and I got a lot (of donations) from there,” said Marcus Ernst. His collections totaled $100.08.
Nanney said the effort wasn’t a contest, and there won’t be any prizes for the students who collected the most money.
“It’s just because we wanted to reach out and help,” Nanney said.
She estimated the total collected to be at least $500. She planned to take the dozens of bottles filled with coins and a few bills to a Coinstar machine this weekend and donate the entire collection to the American Red Cross.
Abbey Maydak, a fifth-grader, said it made her feel good to donate to people who are thousands of miles away. Nanney said one of the school’s students asked his mother if he could clean out his savings and donate it because he had everything he needed.
Other students seemed to have an ulterior motive to their suggestions.
“They wanted to not do their homework in order to conserve paper to send to Haiti,” Nanney said.
A video of the students’ presentation is online (www.buckeyeschools.info). Go to the Ridgeview School section and click on “5th grade students … .”
