Thursday, September 15, 2005
Students aiding students - Children fill backpacks with school supplies for Katrina victims
By Gretchen Losi / Staff Writer, Daily Press
APPLE VALLEY - A classroom filled with little hands and enormous hearts spent Wednesday filling backpacks with school supplies and notes of encouragement. Their destination - displaced students left in Hurricane Katrina's wake.
"I feel really sorry for them because their moms and dads and relatives probably got killed from Katrina because they didn't evacuate," 7-year-old Janelle Scerba of Apple Valley said.
Scerba joined her second-grade class at the Academy for Academic Excellence and filled the donated backpacks with items including crayons, pencil boxes, glue-sticks and paper.
The backpacks were donated by Victor Valley residents and the school items, also donated, from Wal-Mart.
"It's a real community effort," school spokeswoman Cheryl Thompson said.
The idea started while teacher's aide Cathy Griffith was listening to the radio. "I was listening to all that was happening and asked the Lord, 'What could I do to help these people?" Griffith said.
She shared her thoughts with the school's CEO and president, Rick Piercy who suggested backpacks.
"I thought it would be wonderful because then it would be a kid-to-kid thing," Griffith said. "I'm sitting here looking at all these kids and I'm so excited. I can't believe it."
Throughout the month, students will each fill a backpack complete with a personal note offering words of encouragement to their fellow students in need.
Janelle wrote, "I hope your family and animals, if you have any, are OK. I know how you feel because someone I really loved passed away too." "Doing this makes me feel pretty happy," Janelle said.
Janelle's teacher Donna Hackney said the lessons her students are learning through their efforts tie in with the school's motto — Courage, Generosity and Honor.
"This is a chance for them to help somebody. It's always good for them to think of someone else," Hackney said.
The school will send the backpacks to the nonprofit group Feed the Children in the City of Industry for distribution.
"We thought they would go to Houston, Texas, but now there's so many people everywhere in need, that I'm not sure," Griffith said.
The school currently has all the supplies needed to fill some 1,000 backpacks, but another 500 are still needed.
Those interested in donating a new backpack need simply to drop it off at any Apple Valley Fire Department by Sept. 21.
"I know we're going to meet that goal, I just know we will," Thompson said.
Gretchen Losi may be reached at 951-6233 or gretchen_losi@link.freedom.com.
Used with permission by the Daily Press, Freedom Communication, 2005