With bracelets and soda, the students of one northeast Queens grammar school continue to do their part to assist the ongoing relief effort in Haiti.
P. S. 169, the Bay Terrace School held a fund raiser on Tuesday, March 16, and donated all of their proceeds towards Haiti relief. The event was held during parent teacher conferences.
“The kids made bracelets, and we had over 100 free donuts from Dunkin Donuts, parents donated water bottles, and the principal brought soda,” said Orit Forest, the school’s Parent Coordinator. “We sold all of these for a dollar, and we raised about $300.”
According to Foresta, the 17 members of the school’s student council were primarily responsible for proposing the fund raiser. Student volunteers also stayed after school all through the conferences in order to run the event.
The money will now be given to New York City’s Haiti Relief Fund, which is administered by the Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City.
“We all got emails from the Mayor’s office, saying that this was a safe place for anyone who wanted to donate and that the money would go straight to Haiti,” said Foresta. According to the city’s web site, www.nyc.gov, the NYC Haiti Relief Fund has so far donated to the American Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders, UNICEF, as well as other national and international relief organizations.
While it was the school’s first fund raiser to benefit the relief effort in Haiti, it was not the first time that students from the school answered the call for help after the January 12 earthquake. The school welcomed a Haitian student in the days immediately following the quake, during a time when the school was unsure of how to help Haiti on a larger scale.
“At that time, everybody was advised not to do anything because we didn’t know how to send it,” said Foresta. “Instead, we had a clothing drive for this student’s family. Parents in the school supplied them with blankets, pillows, and clothing. We really took care of that family.”
