By Khalida Sarwari
A manila envelope sat on Sandy Waite- Lopez’s desk in room 21 for two weeks. Throughout the day, a student would stroll up, open the envelope and stuff in some loose change. This went on in two other fourth-grade classes at Foothill Elementary School. By Dec. 6, the three classes had collectively raised $393 for UNICEF’s Philippines Typhoon Haiyan Disaster Relief Fund.
But, it got even better. An anonymous donor agreed to match the funds dollar for dollar, bringing the total amount to $787. No one was more pleased than the boy who spearheaded the whole effort.
“We were watching the news–my mom and I–and I thought, why not do a fundraiser at the school?” Marcus Kuo recalled. “I just felt I wanted to help them, because it was really big. Lots of people were in need.”
Marcus, who is vice president of his school’s student council, wasted no time in getting the fundraiser going. He set a timeline of two weeks to raise as much as he could. To get the word out, he made a speech in front of his class and then enlisted the help of his friends, Nika Bagherian, Preston Fu and Nikhil Kapasi, who made similar speeches in front of their classrooms. The speech was short and to the point: “We want everybody to donate $1 to help victims of Typhoon Haiyan. If you want to donate more, please feel free to.”
Initially, people were hesitant to support the fundraiser, Marcus said. His teacher, Waite-Lopez, speculated that one reason might have had to do with competing activities on campus. Eventually, the money did start coming in, to everyone’s pleasant surprise.
Donations were made mostly by the students in Waite-Lopez’s class, as well as those of Sia Marks and Tracy Barley, the teachers of the other two fourth-grade classes, along with contributions from the kindergarten classes. In her classroom, Waite-Lopez posed challenges to her students that encouraged them to complete certain tasks in lieu of her donation.
“If everybody got their planners signed, I’d donate $5,” she recalled. “They did it.”
Some of Marcus’ initial targets did not pan out. He’d wanted to involve the entire school but found that was more difficult than he’d thought, so he focused on just the fourth-grade classes, which have a total of about 80 students.
Marcus had also wanted to donate the money to the American Red Cross, but that organization had just switched to a general disaster relief fund. Not long after, Marcus found a perfect match in UNICEF, which will be using the funds to provide safe drinking water and measles immunizations to people affected by the disaster, including 6 million children, according to Marcus’ mother, Corina Kuo.
Both she and Marcus’ teacher said they were proud of him and his classmates.
“I think the important message is that kids can help,” Waite-Lopez said. “Every little bit helps.”
For his part, Marcus said that despite the challenges, he’d be open to doing another fundraiser in the future. “It was fun doing it.”
