KID'S-EYE VIEW
February 9, 2005
Reading for Tsunami Relief
TFK Kid Reporter Parijat talks to kids who raised more than $ 40,000 for tsunami relief
 First-graders show messages they wrote to tsunami survivors. |
Is it possible for kids to raise thousands of dollars in just one hour? At P.S. 321 in Brooklyn, New York, about 1,200 students raised more than $40,000 for tsunami relief with just one hour of reading. In January, the students held a "Reading Marathon" to raise money for tsunami relief.
 |  A first-grader at P.S. 321 tells Kid Reporter Parijat how she felt raising money for tsunami relief. |
"I hope you get your schools back again," first-grader Francesca W. slowly wrote out on to her strip of paper that would eventually be one of the links in the paper "Chains of Hope" that snake around the P.S. 321, the William Penn School in Brooklyn. The Chains of Hope carry the students' written thoughts about the tsunami and about their experience raising money for relief.
Helping UNICEF Help KidsWhenever I asked the kids what they did to help in the immense tragedy, they were always excited to shout back, "We raised more than $40,000 for UNICEF!" Though I had heard it from them many times, it still amazed me. How did they do it? Through one hour of determined reading! The kids got their parents, siblings, neighbors, even strangers and everyone else in the community to sponsor them in their reading marathon.
The Path to Success
For a whole hour, everyone in the school was silent. Mr. Roger's fifth grade class said that the school was so tranquil, with all the kids in the whole school reading, that they were able to keep their classroom door open, something that they weren’t used to.
|  First-graders at P.S. 321 sing a song about helping others. |
Jack, a fifth grader said, "A reading marathon is educational and a good way to help. We needed to help the people affected by the tsunami because they are a part of our world."
Sponsor sheets were filled with donors pledging only $1 or $2, but the kids managed to get more than 20 people sponsoring one child. Students even sponsored their own friends and other siblings in the school. It was apparent that all the kids in the school had great empathy for the tsunami victims, especially the many children who were directly affected by it.
When asked what motivated them to raise money, many kids responded, "What if it had been us?"
