May
2003
Prior
Lake students raise $2,100 for needy children of Vietnam
By Holly Nordvick
Staff Writer
Students
at Grainwood Elementary School, WestWood Elementary School and Prior Lake
Senior High School (PLSHS) care about what happens to the students at
a school in the Hoai Duc District of Vietnam.
Groups of students at the three schools raised over $2,100 to help buy
school supplies for a school in the Ha Tay providence of Vietnam, south
of Hanoi. The Prior Lake/ Savage Area School District students “adopted”
the primary school in Vietnam, which has 700 students in first through
fifth grade, through Humanitarian Services for Children of Vietnam (HSCV).
“We’re just absolutely thrilled with what they have done,
“said Chuck De Vet, co-founder of HSCV along with his daughter Annetta
De Vet.
During their next visit to Vietnam, coming up in about a month, the De
Vets will deliver the money to the school. “They need mostly everything,”
Chuck said.
Instead of handing over the money to the school employees, Chuck and his
daughter will accompany them to purchase wholesale school supplies. “They’ll
get a lot of stuff for the money that has been raised,” he said.
When they started this project in Prior Lake/Savage Area Schools, the
De Vets had the idea that if went well they might be able to involve other
schools in the metro area. And the experiment has been successful. “It
worked out so well…better then good, “he said.
In fact, the local students’ efforts exceeded their expectations,
so HSCV is more than prepared to contact other schools. “There’s
an unlimited number of schools in Vietnam that need help,” he said.
Working hard
Art teacher Tasha Roggow worked with students on the “Make Change
for Change” project at Grainwood. The students raised $540 dollars
for their “sister school.”
Along with students at WestWood, they sent drawings, photos and letters
to the school in Vietnam. The students in Vietnam also sent drawings,
photos and letters back to the Prior Lake school through the De Vets –
“so we could get to know what each other’s lives are like,”
Roggow said.
Kirsten Lien and Michelle Ellingboe, co-student council advisors at WestWood,
worked with the student council on the same project. Students at WestWood
raised $903 for the school in Vietnam.
Lien was surprised by how well the students responded to the project.
“I didn’t think we would make more than 200 or 300 dollars,”
she said. “[But] they were really into it.”
Student council members visited each classroom at the school and told
the other students about the project. “We just kind of emphasized
that we have a lot here in our public schools in the United States that
we take for granted,” Lien said.
Katy Halberg, SYNERGY specialist at PLSHS, worked with the SYNERGY group
on two fundraising projects. They raised a total of $1,125 for the school
in Vietnam. “A lot of times they want to do something, but it’s
like, ‘Well, what can we do?’” she said. “And
here was something they could do.”
The SYNERGY group started the project with a contest between the sophomores,
juniors and seniors to see which group could come up with the best fundraising
idea. The sophomores won bragging rights and pie for their wishing-well
idea and the project raised $800. The juniors and seniors raised $325
selling candy sticks around the school.
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