PORT ANGELES — It wasn’t making music, but the result was just as sweet.
Roosevelt Elementary School’s sixth-grade general music students, intent on helping the survivors of Haiti’s magnitude 7.0 earthquake in January, raised more than $1,400 for the American Red Cross and collected more than 1,000 donated items for the Children of the Nations organization during a drive that ended Monday.
Both organizations are assisting in the Haitian response effort.
Lori Kramer, music teacher at the Port Angeles school, said in an e-mail that the students decided to raise funds for Haiti during instruction about “giving out of the goodness of our hearts, and because it is the right and good thing to do.”
She and fellow teacher Kelly Sanders led the students in their fundraising effort, the Help for Haiti Drive.
“We did have a competition to see which team could bring in the most items and money, but there were no prizes or rewards given for donating,” Kramer said.
“We emphasized in skits and in announcements the importance of helping others without expecting anything else in return, except it feeling good to have helped.”
Roosevelt kicked off the drive with an assembly featuring three of the five Port Angeles Fire Department firefighters who returned earlier this month from Haiti, where the death toll is expected to reach 300,000 from the Jan. 12 quake.
Lt. Kevin Denton, who is a parent of a Roosevelt student, and firefighter and paramedic John Hall and firefighter and emergency medical technician Bryant Kroh told the students about their 10-day humanitarian trip there as they traveled as a mobile aid unit in and around Port-au-Prince.
Also on the trip from the Port Angeles Fire Department were Capt. James Mason and paramedic Mark Karjalainen.
“This was our school-wide conspiracy of kindness,” Kramer said of the fundraising drive.
“When our items and money leave our building and arrive in Haiti, it will not be important where they came from.”
