Students across America Helping Haiti

By Jill Lederman
Feb. 2, 2009

Students in Pennsylvania are collecting pennies in jars. Fourth-graders in Iowa are holding a lollipop sale. Kids in a Michigan school are going class to class to ask for donations. And a school in New Jersey asked kids to pay a dollar to wear regular clothes instead of their uniforms.

These are just some examples of how kids are raising money to help Haiti. A very destructive earthquake struck that Caribbean nation last month. Tens of thousands of people died, and many more were injured.

The nation’s capital, Port-au-Prince, and surrounding areas were left in ruins.

It’s likely to take many months—even years—for Haiti to recover from this earthquake. Haiti was already a very poor nation.

Getting water, food, and medical aid to people there remains an urgent need.

Experts say the best way to help is to donate money to groups carrying out relief efforts. People worldwide have answered that call. Kids across America are doing their part too.

Kids in Renea Boles’s fourth-grade class in Glenside, Pennsylvania, were saving pennies to help pay for a new school playground. But they decided the people of Haiti need that money more.

“The kids there don’t even have a school, and we’ll still have a playground,” said Lucy, a student in Ms. Boles’s class.

Her classmate Julie says helping people makes her feel proud. “Supporting and helping people reminds me of how lucky I am, and . . . that everything isn’t always about me.

To help others is always the right thing to do,” she said.

 

 

THINK AND WRITE 

Read today’s story about kids raising money to help earthquake victims in Haiti, and then use what you’ve learned to respond to this writing prompt

 

Source: Scholastic News Online

 

Editor’s Note: Students stand before a sign made to raise awareness and money for Haiti relief efforts. (Photo: Larry Schwartz)

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