They also penned messages of love, encouragement for teachers, students
Posted: September 8, 2023
From making beds to vacuuming cars, students from two Florida public schools raised $13,500 in just six days to benefit Maui teachers who lost their homes and classrooms to deadly wildfires in August.
The two Tampa-area sister schools, Roland Park K–8 Magnet School and York Innovation Academy, held a coin drive and donated their earnings to the Hawaiʻi State Teachers Association’s Maui fire relief fund.
Kids ‘making beds or doing dishes’ to earn money for Maui teachers
When Roland Park faculty learned that teachers on Maui lost their homes and classrooms to devastating wildfires, they wanted to help quickly. They asked York Innovation Academy to join the coin drive and turned the effort into an International Baccalaureate (IB) project for the schools.
International Baccalaureate is a global organization that offers programs to develop well-rounded, caring, self-motivated students. Roland Park is an IB school and York Innovation Academy is an IB candidate school, so students work on service projects through action when there is a humanitarian crisis at the local, national, or international level.
In order to make an IB project out of the drive, both schools incorporated different lessons.
Cara von Ancken, assistant principal of the Primary Years Programme at Roland Park, said that the kindergartners at her school are “learning how to be good family and community members” so they took on different chores around their homes to raise money for their school’s coin drive.
“A lot of the kids were, you know, making their bed or doing dishes. A lot of them would vacuum their parents’ cars out to find coins and other little items,” von Ancken said.
Tara Tilotta, a kindergarten teacher at Roland Park, said, “I find if you give little humans a chance to be caring, they are going to run with it.”
Their school’s drive, which earned a total of $6,414, became part of the students’ curriculum.
Von Ancken said, “Our data processor, she would take the coins and the cash daily, and then she would actually give her count (to each student) like, ‘Here’s how many pennies you collected today. Here’s how many dimes you collected.’ So some of the teachers in first grade were even kind of talking with the kids about money, working that in as well.”
Brooke Whalen, magnet lead teacher and IB coordinator at York Innovation Academy, said that students earned the money for the drive at their school through various service projects as well.
“They were earning that money to show service and working to be able to help someone, not, ‘Hey mom can you write a check?’” Whalen said.
Of the $7,084 raised at her school, $4,000 was strictly coins.
Whalen’s own two children, who are in third and sixth grade at York, collected a massive amount of coins.
“Last Friday after school, we had two wagons completely full of coins and change that we rolled into the bank. It took us probably three hours on Friday and another hour this past Monday to just feed the coins into the coin machine at the bank,” Whalen said.
One York student independently ran her own lemonade stand, earning nearly $400 to add to the pot to benefit Maui teachers.
Teachers at York also used STEM lessons during their collection drive.
“We tried to make it fun for the kids. We did like a little competition, and so when they brought in their coins, they had to weigh the coins to find the mass. And then they did some different mathematical challenges each day using their coins and the mass of their coins,” Whalen explained.
According to Whalen, all money “was truly collected by the students, which is heart-warming to know they were able to earn and collect the funds within the week of learning about the need in Maui.”
The HSTA received donation checks directly from the two Florida schools, along with large boxes of support letters penned by students.
Beyond raising money: Kids pen messages of encouragement, hope
While the news of the Maui wildfires shook Hawaiʻi, the nation, and the world, kids at both Florida schools “couldn’t imagine having no home and classroom,” Whalen said.
The student bodies from the two Tampa-area schools come from diverse backgrounds. While some donated money to the coin drive, others penned letters, messages, and pictures of encouragement to Maui educators who lost their homes, classrooms, or both.
The HSTA received two large boxes filled with dozens of letters from York Academy and Roland Park students.
Jaxon, a student at York Academy, wrote, “I want you to know that even though we have never met, I care very much about you and am thinking about you. You are very important and I know you will get through this. Stay strong!”
Another York Academy student named Imran wrote, “You can get through this situation as long as you stay hopeful…Remember to always stay strong and never give up, even in tough situations like this.”
“I hope you are feeling better,” wrote Mikenzie, a Roland Park student. “I know that it is hard, but you are doing great! I know that you are going to get better soon, and always think positive, don’t worry.”
Luiza, a fourth grade student at Roland Park, wrote, “I heard what happened. I feel really bad… Let your soul brighten up a little. Think positive vibes… I wish that everything that you have will come back to you.”
A third grade Roland Park student named Lucia said, “I hope you are recovering from the fire. After we give you the money you can spend it on whatever you need. I hope you never give up and keep trying.”
Harrison, a fifth grader at Roland Park, wrote “I know you’re sad, but your family will keep you up no matter what.”
Von Ancken, Roland Park assistant principal, said, “We have kids from all walks of life, so we have some children who might not be able to make a monetary donation. But the teachers incorporated a writing component by doing the letters, and some of the middle school teachers even were doing some poems, tying that in with language arts.
“So it became more than just we’re raising money. Some of our kids were even like, ‘Why do we go out of our way to help strangers or people we might never even meet?’ Some of the kids are like, ‘Well, it’s karma.’ You know, you’re doing really amazing things for these people. You never know, something could happen to us, and then other people will look out for us if we’re in need,” she said.
More than 240 people and organizations from 33 states across the country have donated in excess of $205,000 to the Hawaiʻi State Teachers Association to help Maui teachers who’ve lost homes and classrooms to the Aug. 8 wildfires. The HSTA has disbursed 129 checks worth about $126,000 to 122 members and seven teacher retirees who suffered fire losses.