FALMOUTH — In the weeks since a devastating earthquake hit Haiti, Falmouth teachers, staff and students have employed a variety of creative ways to raise money to help the struggling country.

According to Service Learning Coordinator Holly MacEwan, a lot of different school organizations and classrooms got into the act.

Lunt School involved parents, asking them to provide their children with ways to earn money for Haiti by doing chores around the house. The result was nearly $1,500 contributed to the American Red Cross.

The “Change for Haiti” drive at Plummer-Motz School has been collecting spare change from staff and student throughout the past month. And, to incorporate math with the charitable project, the students will be given a chance to view the change and estimate the the total amount before it’s counted.

Also at Plummer-Motz, participants in the Kids Who Care program designed artwork and wrote messages of hope and support. These messages will be sent to Haitian victims of the quake through Roots and Shoots, an international non-profit organization founded by Dr. Jane Goodall.

A couple of weeks ago, students and children who take part in the OceanView Kids’ Club after-school program decorated note cards with their elder friends at OceanView. The cards will be sold with all proceeds going to help the Haitian people.

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Falmouth Middle School students, led by Guidance Counselor Pat Wright, have been collecting funds for Konbit Sante, the Portland area-based Cap-Haitien health partnership. Students learned more about the local group’s ongoing work to bring better health care to Haiti and its efforts to care for earthquake survivors.

Friday activities that included pay a dollar, or any donation, to wear slippers one week and hats another attracted much of the donation, while a popcorn sale with proceeds going to Konbit Sante was also popular. A representative from Konbit Sante will be speaking at the middle school and accept the donation after the group returns from Haiti.

At the high school, “Dollars for Haiti,” led by teacher Dede Waite, raised more than $600 for Partners in Health from a week of lunch-time collections.

The Falmouth High School Key Club will be selling hand-made beaded bracelets and will hold “mud cookie” sales in March to support relief efforts. When food and money are tight, Haitians bake and eat real mud cookies, which consist of clay, shortening and salt. The Key Club’s version will resemble the real ones in appearance, but will include a tag to explain the tradition behind the real ones.

And high school teacher Jesse Brewer’s students have designed note cards after samples of Haitian art they studied. An assortment of cards are being sold eight to a package for $10. After Brewer’s students researched Haitian relief organizations through Charity Navigator, an on-line tool that rates charities’ financial health, they chose to give proceeds from the cards to Hope for Haiti.

The note cards are available for sale at any of the schools and at the superintendent’s office, as well as at Forget Me Nots and Maine Roasters Coffee. On Saturday, March 6, from 11 a.m.-3 p.m., they will also be sold at Shaw’s Supermarket in Falmouth.

Peggy Roberts can be reached at 781-3661 ext. 125 or proberts@theforecaster.net.


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