Trying to Make a Difference
After the tragedy in Japan and tiny affects in Hawaii (while I was there) I was deeply moved. After searching the Internet I found the Students Rebuild website and program of crane creation to make a money donation. For each crane $2 will be donated to Japan. I was impressed by the dedication of the foundation in both generosity and symbolism of the project. Since we cannot collect money directly from the students this program provided a wonderful opportunity to make a difference in Japan.
I introduced the idea to my 7th graders right after our field trip on Monday March 21st after our spring break. At the end of the day I also sent e-mail to the school staff to join us. My hopes were to gather a couple hundred cranes. In a short 4 days, my 125 students created over 400 cranes. I extended the deadline for collection one week since there was such excitement and many of the students wanted to copy the story of Sadako Sasaki and create 1,000 cranes.
Not only did we over reach our 1,000 crane goal, the elementary school next door sent over 300 cranes to add to our efforts. Many students also wrote letters that included Japanese writing and drawings to help to provide hope and encouragement to the children in Japan. We ended with almost 1400 cranes. Yet I did not send them all. Many are made of odd materials (we even had gum wrapper ones) and several boys tried for the smallest crane folding ever.I send 1330 cranes resulting in $2660 gong to Japan.
I am so proud and impressed by my students and happy to share our efforts with you.
Our efforts made the online Arizona Republic and the district wide newspaper.
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