Brother helping brother

MEADOW LAKES — Don’t panic, Midnight Sun Family Learning Center hasn’t been overrun by large, predatory felines. The 2,000-some paw prints plastering the walls at the charter school symbolize a flavorful school-wide effort to help pair a local boy with a service dog.

Spearheaded by 13-year-old Jonah Koonce, Midnight Sun students and families bought 2,000 lollipops and donated about $3,000 over the past couple months to help meet the $13,000 a local family needs to match a specially trained dog to an 8-year-old autistic boy with Down syndrome.

That the boy doesn’t even attend the school didn’t seem to matter to the other students. It was enough that Jonah was reaching out on behalf of his little brother, Willie.

“A lot of kids in my class know Willie personally, because he used to come to school sometimes,” Jonah said. “They know he needs some help.”

We first met Willie Koonce in March when his family began fund-raising efforts to get Willie a service animal from Ohio-based 4 Paws For Ability, which trains dogs specially to work with children. For Willie, the animal will help give him more independence and help keep him from wandering off. The dog can also sense when Willie, who is nonverbal, is frustrated, upset or may be near having an emotional episode.

At its annual meeting last week, Matanuska Electric Association gave the family a $2,500 grant from its Round Up program and a benefit spaghetti dinner is planned from 5 p.m., May 20 at Meadow Lakes Elementary School, said mom, Carmi Koonce.

In the mean time, Willie’s older brother didn’t waste any time organizing a committee of his friends and kick-starting the lollipop fundraiser, called Pops 4 Paws. They brought the lollipops to school and sold them for $1. Making it a friendly competition, paper paw prints were given to kids who purchased a lollipop to put up in the school’s hallways, different colors for each classroom.

What happened in the weeks that followed was amazing, Jonah said. The 165 students and their families spent their allowances and donated.

“So far, it’s been a big hit,” Jonah said. “I wasn’t expecting it to be that much, not at all. At first, I thought we were going to fill up one hallway (with paw prints), but now we’ve filled up almost the entire school with paw prints.”

As impressive as the response from the Midnight Sun community has been the hard work and dedication Jonah has shown in running the fundraiser, Carmi said.

“It was phenomenal,” she said. “I was just blown away. I did not expect that much support. Willie’s not even in their school. I am absolutely blown away by the generosity and the giving spirit of the kids and the families at the school. Each day Jonah comes home with stories of kids saving their allowances for a month, or things like that.”

With about another $6,500 left to raise, Carmi said she’s confident Willie will benefit from a service dog sooner rather than later.

For Jonah, he’s just doing what a big brother should, he said — looking out for his little bro. “Yeah, I’m going to be very happy when he gets his dog.”

Contact Greg Johnson at greg.johnson@frontiersman.com or 352-2269.