Students raise $3,500 for clean water
By Phyllis Moore
Published in News on May 21, 2018 5:50 AM
Full Size
Submitted photo
Kate Hunter, center, a sixth-grader at Wayne Country Day School, helps count money generated from several fundraisers held to provide clean water for South Sudan, with first-grader Everett Adams, left, and fifth-grader Caroline Suddarth.
Full Size
Submitted photo
Wayne Country Day School sixth-grader Mance Edmondson, center, helps fifth-grader Obi Okeke, left, and first-grader Thomas Gay count money from several fundraisers held recently at the school to generate support for clean water in Sudan. Thomas Gay's sixth-graders took on the project after reading a book in class.
Sixth-graders at Wayne Country Day School brought a recent class lesson to life, with global affects -- raising $3,500 to bring clean water to the war-torn country of South Sudan.
It all started out with the 2010 short novel, "A Long Walk to Water," the true story of Salva Dut, part of the Dinka tribe and one of the original Sudanese "Lost Boys," said their teacher, Thomas Gay. It also featured a fictional character of Nya, a young village girl around the age of Gay's students.
They learned about those who had to walk for several hours, every day, just to retrieve clean drinking water or suffered health issues or lack of education as a by-product of not having clean water.
So, when they read about Dut's program, "Water for South Sudan," it virtually leapt off the page for the compassionate group of students.
"We read the book, and we realized how many people were getting sick," said Andrew Crawford. "We wanted to help by getting them clean water -- they were drinking very dirty water that was almost completely brown."
Kate Hunter was also moved by the story and felt compelled to respond, while classmate Martison Sharp said it caused her to realize how much clean water is taken for granted.
"It kind of made me feel like we just take advantage of our water," said Ava Bolechowski. "We can just walk 10 steps to get to a water fountain. They have to walk three or four hours."
"It's kind of surprising," said Kaden Chudy. "It's kind of hard to fathom because we can just walk over to the sink."
Gay said that by the time his class had finished the book, it became apparent that this would not be the end of the story.
"I could clearly tell that the students, they made a connection to the character," he said. "Knowing that he was real and actually headed an organization, they said that they wanted to raise money.
"It was very student-led. They came up with the idea. They organized it. I was just the person giving them that kind of support, leading them through the process."
Their interest sparked more than ways to generate money. It became a study in teamwork, with all 12 of Gay's students pooling their efforts and working together.
"It's easier to think with a team," said student William Johnston. "You have more people to support your ideas. It's easier to do it as a team than just one person."
He explained that by working together, one person's ideas lend to another's, and fortunately, the group worked well together.
"It was very fun to hear everybody's ideas and how creative everybody was and it was really nice when all our ideas started to come to life," Hunter said.
"When we were going through the process, we had all these ideas of what we wanted to do and it was fun hearing all of their ideas and what they wanted to do," Bolechowski said.
They came up with several options for fundraising, said Adison King, including a basketball game, a cake raffle and a jar competition.
The latter, explained Mance Edmondson, involved every class soliciting donations and there were two ways to "win" -- for the class raising the most money and then which raised the most per person.
"In the 3K class, for example, there are only nine or 10 (students) and they raised about $10 per student," Gay explained. "And then our ninth grade raised the most of the classes, just over $1,000 because they had their own separate bake sale."
That was helped in part, he said, by a teacher who offered to match what was raised. Dr. Edward Sharp -- an AP biology teacher and sixth-grader Martison Sharp's father.
"He had to write a check for $500," Gay said. "He wanted to push them, and didn't realize how much that would push them."
There was also an unexpected affirmation, which came in the timing of it all, their teacher said.
It began innocently enough -- determining when to wrap up the fundraising and donation efforts. First they set Friday, March 22, as the deadline but realized they might need an additional day to count the money. So the last day became that Thursday.
"What we didn't realize is the day that we picked to stop the collection is 'Global Water Day,'" Gay said. "So in our plans, it just kind of fell into place, providence if you call it that, the day we stopped our collection was Global Water Day. So for us that was kind of like this moment where we felt this was what we were supposed to be doing."
When the tally was made, a total of $3,500 had been raised.
That, too, was significant, Gay said, since he had learned that every $10 brought in can impact one person.
"There are just about 300 people, students and staff, here at the school so ultimately we were able to impact the same number of people that we have here at the school," he said.
Abby Hackett said she believed the entire class felt good about what it had done and potentially make a difference for children in another part of the world.
Their sense of pride eclipsed any sort of monetary gain, Johnston said.
"From what I saw, everyone really wanted to raise money, not just for a prize -- the prize is helping someone in Sudan," he said.
"I feel happy that I was actually able to do a good deed and help people have clean water," said Sam Kim.
And Gay, in his third year teaching at the school, had his own reasons for being particularly proud of these students.
"This is what I envisioned teaching would be," he said. "I get to live out what my dream was -- of students that not only care about their learning but care about who they are as an individual and care about others."
Crawford asked that the website for this cause be shared with the community, in hopes that others might also be inspired and motivated to lend support.
The site is waterforsouthsudan.org.