It must be contagious...

...Generosity, that is.

This has been the week for generous giving....or should I say, a generous month?

At my church, we were participating in an annual fundraiser for a local pregnancy center that we support. The church distributes baby bottles and we fill them up with loose change. I can't remember what our goal was, but we raised over $3000! It was quite a moment to see our Pastor present this check to the representative from the center.

At my school we have had two different campaigns going on. One was our annual campaign for the American Heart Association, called Jump Rope for Heart. The PE teacher sponsors this and the kids raise money. She had a goal of $1500, and our kids raised over $2000! One girl in my class raised $150 by herself.

Our guidance counselor decided to do a spontaneous campaign to sponsor the earthquake victims in Haiti. The Heart Association drive is always in February, but no one plans an earthquake, so we had both fundraisers going on at the same time. For Haiti, we asked for each family to donate $1. Now we have about 500 kids in our school, but of course many of these kids are brothers and sisters. We figured asking for $1 per family would not be too much to ask, and that we might raise 300-400 dollars. Well, the guidance counselor announced today that we raised over $900!!!

One thing I may not have mentioned about my school is that we receive special funding because the school has such a high number of students on free or reduced lunch. My school has a high population of families whose first language is not English. And we have many families who struggle to survive. For the kids at my school to be living such hard lives, and with the economy the way it is, for some of these kids, $1 is a lot to give. But believe it or not, we had kids bringing in $5, $10, and more. Some of my kids brought in money on several occasions! It certainly has made me proud of these kids!

And to top it off...the PE Teacher had promised the student body she would do something crazy if we met our goal....and we surpassed it! She announced today what she is going to do. She is going to be duck-taped to a wall of the gym, and the top-10 fundraisers will get to help stick her to the wall. I can't wait to see this!