Local schools, business band together to raise funding for relief effort
by Lindsay Hoeppner · February 03, 2010

Helping Haiti one coin at a time.

Following the catastrophic earthquake that devastated the Haitian capital city of Port-au-Prince on Tuesday, Jan. 12, a group of West Liberty Elementary students wanted to know what they could do to help the nearly 3 million people affected by the disaster.

As a result, Pamela Miller-Dekeyser’s TAG (Talented and Gifted) students and Lisa Beal’s special education students combined their ideas and came up with a plan — they wanted to hold a coin drive at the school.

What started out as a strictly elementary school effort, soon branched over to West Liberty Middle School and eventually into a community-wide effort.

“We did this with Hurricane Katrina, but I don’t even remember how much we raised,” Beal said. “I remember it being successful — it was a good amount of money.”

The elementary and middle school students began bringing lumps of change to school last Monday, Jan. 25. While any form of change was accepted, each day of the week took on a theme — Monday was penny day, Tuesday was nickel day, Wednesday was dime day, Thursday was quarter day and Friday was anything day. At the end of each day, each grade level would combine their change in decorated ice cream buckets and Miller-Dekeyser and Beal took turns depositing the money into a special account at West Liberty State Bank.

Despite the themed coin days, Miller-Dekeyser and Beal accepted any form of change each day.

“Most kids brought it in whenever, and we just separated it out so we could have an authentic reading, because some of the kids would figure out how many coins made that amount of money,” Beal said. “It was a good learning experience for them.”

But, the two teachers knew they had hit the jackpot when Friday’s drop for the elementary school alone was over $900.

“That was amazing,” Beal said.

Amazing, indeed.

Over the course of five days, the students managed to raise $1,982.39.

“We are very impressed,” Beal said. “We talked a lot, at least in my class, about compassion, and what it means to be compassionate. I think that was the neatest thing that came out of this. One of my students actually said, ‘It feels good to give,’ and that’s what we had hoped we would get out of this — even though they don’t know any of the people, they still did extra chores and used their allowance, and were really proud and excited to do it. One little girl said, ‘I’m giving all my allowance, and I’m poor now,’ and I said, ‘How do you feel about that?’ She said, ‘I feel really good, because I know it’s going to help them.’ I think that’s a huge testimony for this small community, to do something this big, this quick.”

Those weren’t the only students that learned how good being compassionate can feel, though.

Fifth-grader Belinda Heckman went into the community and fundraised for the coin drive and used money she had earned babysitting over the summer.

“I brought in $90 on Friday,” she said.

But that wasn’t the only day Heckman contributed funds to the drive — she brought in change each day, as well.

Third-graders Itzel Diaz and Alieen Calderon did extra chores throughout the week to raise money to bring to school each day.

“I wanted to help Haiti,” Calderon said.

What’s more, none of the students were angry they were giving up their hard earned money.

Why?

“Because we’re helping others,” said third-grader Braydon Herrold.

And, that desire to help did not go unrecognized by building administrators and teachers.

“From the few pennies the kids would bring to the big dollars, it didn’t really matter,” Beal said. “They knew they were doing something good.”

As soon as the last bundle of money was collected last Friday, the students were eager to find out how much they had raised.

“That’s how excited they were,” Beal said.

Miller-Dekeyser and Beal created a large, poster board-sized check on Monday, to show the students their hard work was worth the effort. The funds will be donated to World Wide Village Inc., a St. Paul, MN-based nonprofit charitable organization that strives to transform impoverished communities, such as Haiti.

“I can’t say how proud we are of the kids and the community,” Beal said. “With no expectations at all, this is just amazing, especially in these economic times, to be able to pull together like this.”

West Liberty students haven’t been the only community members raising funds for the Caribbean country, though.

When Giri BP owner Deepak Giri saw CNN news coverage of the Haitian earthquake earlier this month, he knew he waned to help in some way.

“It was very painful to watch, so I talked to some of my friends who own businesses, and said, ‘Let’s do something,’” Giri said.

Through a combined effort with the American Red Cross of the Quad Cities Area, Giri developed a plan.

Last Thursday, he began offering a special promotion to his customers. Through today (Thursday, Feb. 4), 5 cents per gallon on every gas sale will be donated to the American Red Cross to provide relieve efforts in Haiti. In addition, Giri BP has been selling corn dogs for $1 — 100 percent of the proceeds will also be donated.

“It’s not a lot, it’s just a little bit, but if we all do a little, it adds up,” Giri said.

From the West Liberty Index Feb. 4, 2010