Tesseract School Kids Collect $3,600 for Katrina Families

Students from one Phoenix independent elementary school stage a coin drive which nets more than $3600 in just 10 days to help 400 kids displaced by Hurricane Katrina.

Phoenix, AZ (PRWEB) November 23, 2005 -- Tesseract School students have raised more than $3,600 for families displaced by Hurricane Katrina, with a Coin Drive over a 10-day period.

Children from 1st through 8th grades participated in the coin drive, which began after the school viewed a slide show highlighting the damage done by Hurricane Katrina and the plight of the families affected.

“One of the things the students are seeing is that their individual efforts – when combined with the efforts of others – can have a significant affect on our community,” said Nigel Taplin, head of Tesseract School.

Over the course of 10 days the students collected coins and raised a total of $3,622.22. This amount was donated to the St. Vincent de Paul Society, an international charitable organization, which has been spearheading efforts to help Katrina families who were relocated to the Valley.

According to Liz Casey from the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, the funds will be used to provide assistance in establishing residences for 600 families.

“These families contain about 400 children, so it’s especially meaningful that we have children helping other children in this coin drive by Tesseract School,” she said.

Barbara Greenberg and Jana Wilcke are the two Tesseract parents who coordinated the coin drive.

“The slide show was important for the students,” said Greenberg. “It really gave them a perspective of how families were devastated by the disaster.”

Students discussed the slide show together in an assembly, then had further discussions in individual classrooms and wrote “reflection cards”.

“What really was the impetus of this successful drive was a challenge from the first grade class,” said Greenberg. “Earlier, they had collected more than $330 in loose change to donate to the Humane Society to help rescue pets stranded by the hurricane. They set the bar and challenged the rest of the school to beat their total.”

Tesseract School, located at 4800 E. Doubletree Ranch Road in Paradise Valley, Arizona, is an independent, non-profit school that serves children in preschool through eighth grade. The School is dedicated to engaging students in learning achieved through small classrooms, low student-teacher ratios, outstanding educators and a rigorous curriculum. Its faculty and students share a commitment to teamwork and dedication to lifelong learning. For more information, call 480-991-1770 or visit www.tesseractschool.org

The Society of St. Vincent de Paul is an international volunteer organization that serves the poor in over 130 countries. The local Society was started in Phoenix in 1946. With the help of over 2,000 members and 6,000 volunteers, the Society currently feeds, clothes and assists families in need throughout central and northern Arizona.

# # #