Kids helping kids

WASILLA — A group of fourth- and fifth-grade students from Fronteras Spanish Immersion School found that giving is better than receiving.

More than 40 students from the school gathered last week at Wal-Mart to help buy gifts for the Special Santa program. The gifts were for other children around the Mat-Su Valley who are in need.

“They (the students) said it was not just good, they said it was awesome,” said Sonya Cook, a teacher from Fronteras.

Cook said it was the students’ idea to help raise money for the Special Santa Program. The $250 they raised was matched by the Special Santa for a total of $500 in gifts.

At Wal-Mart the student were divided into 14 groups of three and given $50 and list of items needed by Special Santa for a child.

In a letter written by the students, they described their experience, “It was challenging to find all of the items that each child wanted for Christmas. It was also hard to stay within a $50 budget. We used lots of math and cooperation in deciding what to buy. We were surprised that all of the kids wanted things that we take for granted like pants, socks, hats, coats, gloves, etc.”

The students were surprised at how much fun they had said Cook, but it also helped open their eyes to how much some other children were in need.

“We chose a few more gifts that we didn’t have money to buy and completed the children’s wish lists. Then, we made gift bags for other children. It was more fun giving to others than receiving from others,” said the students in their letter.

The $250 the students donated to Special Santa was 25 percent of the money raised by the students, for their field trip to the Kenai Space Center.

As of now the students are about one-third of the way to meeting their goal of raising $3,500 for the field trip, Cook said.

“It was their idea to donate money even though they knew we would have to work harder to go on the field trip,” she said.

But it was not just the students who were in a giving mood. While at Wal-Mart, manager Terry Voorhees announced that Wal-Mart would donate $5,000 to the Special Santa Program.

Voorhees said it was great thing that the students and Special Santa was doing and that he was just happy to be a part of it.

Contact Lanier Hutcheson at lanier.hutcheson@frontiersman.com or 352-2265.