Students at the Accelerated Achievement Academy in Hollister turned reading an article about refugees into a multi-week fundraising effort to help people living in Chad and South Sudan.
In April, the class of seventh-grade academy students opened their Scope Magazine and saw an article about Syrian refugees, which caused them to ask serious questions about what it meant to flee home and how they could help.
“And one of them brought up the idea, ‘Why don’t we raise some money for them?’” said Nicole Alvarez, the class’ seventh-grade teacher.
After about a month of fundraising, a $1,344.53 check will soon head to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, Alvarez said.
To raise money, the teacher’s 27 students started an afterschool store where they sold handmade scarves and bows to those at the academy and Calaveras, the K-8 site located on the same campus. The students also brought home envelopes and asked for donations from family and friends.
Alvarez was “proud” to see her class initiate the project. Sharing a worldview that is larger than Hollister is close to Alvarez’s heart, as she previously taught in Tanzania. The teacher often shares stories from her time abroad with her students, some of which will be the first in their families to finish seventh grade.
“I bring that into my teaching and how lucky they are,” she said.
