Bentonville Students Work To Help Shelter

STAFF PHOTO JASON IVESTER Graham Hardin, from left, Logan Mullins, Theodore Haven and Strael Wolfe take a cart with hot chocolate to be delivered to classrooms.
STAFF PHOTO JASON IVESTER Graham Hardin, from left, Logan Mullins, Theodore Haven and Strael Wolfe take a cart with hot chocolate to be delivered to classrooms.

BENTONVILLE -- Sugar Creek Elementary School third-graders got a lesson in economics this month while raising nearly $1,000 for the Northwest Arkansas Children's Shelter.

Each of the school's five third-grade classes chose a specific fundraising activity, such as making and selling Christmas ornaments. A shelter representative was expected to visit the school today to accept an oversized check in the amount of $945, the amount raised by all five classes.

At A Glance

Children’s Shelter

The Northwest Arkansas Children’s Shelter opened in 1993. It is a private, nonprofit organization that provides 24-hour emergency residential care to children who are victims of family violence, neglect and physical and sexual abuse. Children may stay at the shelter for up to 45 days in a six-month period before being placed in another foster-care setting or returning to their families.

Source: Northwest Arkansas Children’s Shelter

The project started as one student's idea before spreading to the other 100 students in her grade level, according to teacher Amy Barnett.

Lilli Timpe, 8, wanted money to buy Christmas gifts for the Salvation Army's Angel Tree program, so she and her friends decided to make ornaments and sell them in her neighborhood. They made about $20.

"We had fun and were really happy to do a good deed," Lilli said.

Pretty soon the idea caught on in Barnett's classroom. The class made and sold 172 ornaments at $1 each.

To promote their goods, Barnett's class made a commercial to be shown to the rest of the school. The commercial explains what the shelter is, why the shelter is needed and what items the shelter needs. Students promoted the upcoming sale of their ornaments to benefit the shelter.

Laura Blades' third-graders also made "cinnamon ornaments" made with cinnamon and apple sauce and baked at 200 degrees.

Her students sold the ornaments at school and in their neighborhoods for the past week. They made more than $300, Blades said.

"Kids can sell, too," said Aidan Bledsoe, 9, a student in Blades' class. "For 20 people to get $320, that's amazing."

Project-based learning is about presenting students a problem and letting them figure out how to solve it with minimal guidance from the teacher, Blades said. She was amazed by the work the students did and how engaged they were.

"They were really holding each other accountable," she said.

Clint Alexander's third-graders took turns running a hot chocolate stand all day Thursday inside the school. The students poured and mixed the hot chocolate; they also offered cookies, doughnuts and cupcakes. They didn't wait for customers to come to them; they also delivered hot chocolate throughout the building.

"The kids came up with the idea," Alexander said. "I thought, yeah, we can do that."

By mid-day, the hot chocolate stand had made more than $200, he said. Nearly all the food was either purchased or made by parents. Nestle donated the hot chocolate mix.

Shannon Wolfe, mother of Strael Wolfe, one of Alexander's students, stood by and watched him and other students operate the stand.

"They're learning to give back. And I love seeing that this is all them," Wolfe said.

Gail Tabler's and Mary Norris' third-grade classes offered their services to other teachers in exchange for donations. They re-organized libraries, scrubbed desks and made crafts with kindergarten students, Tabler said.

Greg Russell, the shelter's marketing director, said he shared the commercial Barnett's students had made on the shelter's social media channels.

"I was just blown away by it," Russell said.

Sugar Creek isn't the only school that has tried to help the shelter. A third-grade class at Central Park Elementary School also combined business principles and philanthropy in a recent project. The class broke up into companies that designed products to sell to other students, Russell said.

"It's always nice when you have the component of kids giving to kids," he said.

NW News on 12/19/2014

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