Schools Get Involved

• Help for the Kabul Zoo
  Fourth-graders from Sollars Elementary School, Misawa, Japan, raised $742 to help animals at the Kabul Zoo in Afghanistan, including Donnatella, a six-year-old, 110-pound Asiatic black bear. The money raised by the students was part of $500,000 being donated to the zoo by the North Carolina Zoological Park, which is in charge of rebuilding the zoo. When the students heard about the problems the zoo was facing because of the bombing of Kabul, and saw a horrifying newsclip about the abused animals, especially Donnatella who has a badly infected nose received as a result of being whacked with a stick by several children last year, they decided to help out. Following a 10-step process of successful fund raising, the students and their teacher, Mr. T., raised funds by showing “Three Stooges” movies, and selling popcorn and baked goods in the school’s multi-purpose room. The class received personal thank you letters from the director of the Raleigh, North Carolina, Zoo who is in charge of the rebuilding project, and the director of the Kabul Zoo.
  
  
• Operation Storm Stork
  Fourth-graders from Sollars Elementary School, Misawa, Japan, and their teacher, Mr. T, held a fitness carnival/bake sale fundraiser in April to benefit Operation Storm Stork, a project concerning 83 endangered storm storks and their habitat in the wetlands of East Malaysia, Borneo. The over $400 raised at the fundraiser will help make it possible to continue the survey and study of the storm storks’ nesting and breeding habits.
  
  The students have researched the storm stork project and correspond directly, via the internet, with the chief researcher in the Lower Kinabatangan Floodplain region. Mr. T bought a digital camera for the chief researcher last year on the promise that he would e-mail the class with daily updates including photos from the field. The chief researcher and his team contact the students directly from their hut near the Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary. In addition, the researchers will use a 30-minute video of the April fundraiser made by Mr. T. and his students in an educational campaign for schools in East Malaysia to let the local children know that other kids around the world care about conservation of the wetlands and species survival.
  
  
• WeCARE
  For the past two years, students at Lakenheath Elementary School, Lakenheath, England, have participated in WeCARE, a school improvement program initiated by Mr. L., a teacher at the school. CARE stands for “care and respect everyone.” The goal of the program is to instill in young children a desire to help others. Via WeCARE, students have performed a variety of tasks and activities designed to improve their community and the lives of others, including visiting elderly people, cleaning up trash, recycling aluminum cans and paper, raising money to train guide dogs for the blind and deaf (last year, the students raised nearly $10,000 for the guide dogs!), and adopting an owl at a local zoo.