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Loose change and leftover lunch money
(by Megan Burrow - July 08, 2008)
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Photo Courtesy Of Jamie Steinberg
Rachel Steinberg organized a fundraiser for her fifth grade class to benefit the Make a Wish Foundation. With some help from Pascack Community Bank, Rachel and her classmates raised $1,300 for the foundation.
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When Rachel Steinberg’s kindergarten teacher at Jesse F. George School asked the class to bring something in for “show and teach,” Rachel knew exactly what she wanted to share with her classmates: the concept of charity.
At Hebrew school she had been learning about sedaka, or charity, and was eager to talk about the idea with the class.
Rachel said she told her class all about “charity, what it is and how it helps people.” To demonstrate the concept, she constructed a “charity box,” in which the class could deposit their leftover lunch money and loose change each day.
With her mother Jamie’s help, she wrote a letter to her classmates’ parents, telling them about the project and asking permission for the children to donate their change.
The box was kept on the teacher’s desk throughout the entire school year and at the end of the year, the box was used as a math project, with every child involved in sorting and counting the coins.
In total, the class had raised $35. The children voted on which charity to donate to, ultimately deciding to give the money to Tomorrow’s Children Institute at Hackensack University Medical Center.
Now 10-years-old and soon to enter the sixth grade, Rachel has continued the project at grade level, each time raising more money than the year before. Rachel explained she decided to continue the project after that first year because, it “made me feel really good, knowing I was helping out other kids and doing a good thing for the community.”
This past year was a big change for Rachel, as she moved from Jesse F. George School to Brookside, a much larger middle school, without distinct separate classrooms, organized instead into “teams” of homerooms.
“It was huge,” Rachel said. “There were nine different classes, with at least 15 students each.”
Rachel recognized the immense scale of the new school as an opportunity, and decided to expand the project from one single class to the entire fifth grade. In order to raise as much money as possible, Rachel had each homeroom team compete against each other because, she explained, “children always want their team to win.”
After much consideration, Rachel decided whatever money the grade raised would be donated to the Make-a-Wish Foundation.
“I just thought it was really sweet for an organization to makes wishes come true for sick kids,” she explained. “They might never be able to go and do these things if it wasn’t for the foundation. If a child is having surgery they can think of where they went and had fun or look forward to where they are going to go after the surgery.”
She opened a bank account at Pascack Community Bank in Westwood, and Diana Hoppin, the vice-president volunteered to donate a piggy bank to each classroom and sponsor a pizza party for the winning team at the end of the year.
In the end, the children raised $1,224.74, and when told how much the children were able to collect, Pascack Valley Community Bank volunteered to make it an even $1,300.
In recognition of her commitment to helping others, Rachel received the Caring Award from the Bergen County Professional Counselors Association, an award given each year to one student per school. Her mother spoke with pride as she recalled her daughter’s charitable efforts over the years and said Rachel has “always had a very mature sense of the world around her.”
Rachel said she hasn’t decided yet what charity to donate to next year, but she is thinking of expanding the project to the fifth and sixth grade. The proud owner of a bunny, two cats, a fish and couple of sea monkeys, Rachel said she is “thinking about animals” for next year because, “usually people think more about other people and less about animals.”
For now though, this young philanthropist has a few months to think it over and simply enjoy the rest of the summer.
Megan Burrow's e-mail address is burrow@northjersey.com.
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