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Hurricane relief efforts still going strong

By Emma Schultz, Special Writer

For students at Lincoln Consolidated Schools, the hurricane relief season is far from over.

Since September, students and teachers across the district — from Child's Elementary to Lincoln High — have been putting together a variety of fund-raisers to help those affected by Hurricane Katrina and Rita.

Bianca Von Kulajta, a social worker at Redner Elementary, is still collecting donations from faculty and students, even though their program was only set to run until the end of September.

Rick Ross, who's been a counselor at Lincoln High School for the past 30 years, said that he still gets calls all the time, asking him how they can contribute to the relief effort.

Pamela Reading-Smith, the Director of Public Support for the Red Cross in Washtenaw County, pointed out that the needs of the people affected by Hurricane Katrina and Rita are "long-lasting," as many of them still are without food, shelter, and clothing.

Redner Elementary was able to raise $908 in just one month for the local Red Cross through their "Hats for Humanity" program. They also were able to donate over ten boxes of food and hygiene products to the Jaycees, a community group in the area.

The "Hats for Humanity" program worked by having every Friday for the month of September be the designated day for students and faculty to give a donation for wearing a hat to school — a treat not normally allowed by the school's dress code.

The donations could either be a canned good, hygiene product or a donation of a dollar or more if they desired. Students came out in droves to support the program, giving anything they could from handfuls of pennies to $200 checks.

Von Kulajta was thrilled with the results.

"Again, $908 and 10 bags of groceries is a great feat for a school district that has a fair percentage of our families struggling with poverty issues," she said. "So, we had folks that maybe couldn't give a dollar, but could bring in, you know, a jar of mushrooms or whatever the case was that they could give that week.

"And then we had other families who could donate a check or could donate a $20 bill."

Other students, such as those in Brick Elementary, brought the relief effort closer to home by raising money for families in the local area that were affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

They decided to make and distribute bracelets to raise awareness for the relief effort that were similar in design to the 'Live Strong' bracelet, made popular by the award-winning cyclist, Lance Armstrong. But theirs were one of a kind as well – with a red, white and blue design that simply said: "Hurricane Katrina Relief."

According to Sara Yost, who teaches fourth grade at Brick Elementary and serves on their student council, said they had initially ordered 1,000 bracelets to be made but ran out of them immediately, so she ended up ordering 500 more.

They ended up selling almost all of them in just two weeks, right after Hurricane Katrina hit. The asking donation price for the bracelets was just two dollars, but they took higher donations as well.

"Most students bought them for two dollars but some parents bought like 25 to 50 of them, for like, work," Yost said, "Some of them – a lot of kids bought five, you know, ten for their immediate family – their grandparents. It was great, they went quick."

In the end, they ended up raising $2,500. The money was then used to buy gas cards, phone cards and Target gift certificates for affected families in the community.

But money was not the only thing the district was able to contribute to hurricane relief efforts.

Rory Peterson and her third-grade class at Child's Elementary were able to participate in "Operation Backpack" – a national program that, according to Peterson, put together new backpacks and school supplies for kids that had to be relocated due to Hurricane Katrina and Rita.

Peterson and her 24 students took this on as a class project both in Sept. and Oct., filling 35 backpacks with basic school supplies, as well as specialty items for different age groups. These items included construction paper and activity books for the younger grades as well as calculators and binders for the older grades.

"The kids absolutely loved it," Peterson said. "The kids – you know it was nice because the kids that maybe their families couldn't afford to get involved – they were giving up like their current school supplies, they wanted to put them in the backpacks and everything."

In addition to the backpacks, the class also collected four boxes of kid's books to send to hurricane relief victims – all of which, Peterson says, are in great condition.

Students at Lincoln High School are contributing to the relief effort as well. A large white trailer that sits outside their school parking lot has been open almost every day, allowing students and anyone else from the community to contribute various items to the relief effort.

According to Ross, students at Lincoln High have also donated their own money to the cause at home football games and collection sites the school has set up in the cafeteria.

"They were good about putting in their extra quarter," Ross said. "For a kid to put in a dollar or 75 cents, I don't know if you've been in a high school for awhile, but that's a slice of pizza."

If one thing's clear, it's that the relief efforts for Hurricane Katrina and Rita is far from over. Reading-Smith said that the estimated cost of these two hurricanes is estimated to be $2 billion.

As a result, Red Cross workers and volunteers will be staying in the affected areas throughout the holiday season. According to Reading-Smith approximately 200,000 disaster relief workers have been sent to help work in shelters – a "huge percentage" of which are volunteers.

For more information on how you can help, visit www.redcross.org or call the local chapter of the Red Cross in Ann Arbor at 1-734- 971-5300.