Donate a farm animal to help a family
By Sophia Fischer sfischer@theacorn.com

SOPHIA FISCHER/Acorn Newspapers READER RABBITS- Student Council members at Brookside Elementary School in Oak Park celebrate raising nearly $4,000 for Read to Feed, a program that provides farm animals to impoverished families worldwide to help them support themselves.

Thanks to the efforts of Oak Park students at Brookside Elementary School, families living in poverty in other countries will receive donations of cows, llamas, sheep, goats, water buffalo and tree seedlings to help them support themselves.

Brookside's Student Council led the schoolwide project to raise funds through a read-a-thon. More than $3,900 was collected, including $500 raised by Sarah Heeney, a fifth-grader.

Thirdgrade students had supported the program for the past several years, but this was the first time the effort was expanded to include all grades.

Proceeds will be sent to the Read to Feed program sponsored by the Heifer Project International, based in Little Rock, Ark. The project seeks to end world hunger by providing animals to families in need and training them in animal husbandry and farming. Further information is available at www.heifer.org.

To promote the project at Brookside, Student Council members spoke to all the classes. Teachers read "Beatrice's Goat" by Paige McBrier, the story of how the gift of a goat changed the lives of a young girl and her family in a poor village in Uganda. Students were encouraged to read as much as possible during the monthlong campaign.

The "Student Council also showed a wonderful video that really showed how students' pledges helped specific children and their families become self-sufficient with the gift of different animals," said Paula Stromquist, a fourth-grade teacher and student council coadviser with fifth-grade teacher Mary Jane Weaver.

Student council members were enthusiastic about the project and its successful outcome. Some of their many comments were:

"It's important to do this to help people in need," Matthew Byer, fifth grade.

"It makes you feel better about yourself and helps kids go to school," Noah Kurnick, fourth grade.

"It helps people have better lives and get a good education," Jennifer Mayemura, fifth grade.

"By giving a little from our lives we can help other people have good lives," Justin MacMahan, fifth grade.

"It helps people survive dehydration and starvation," Ben Winck, fourth grade.

"It helps people who are less fortunate than us, who aren't as affluent as us," Adam Ashkenazi, fifth grade.

"My friend donated $500 to Read and Feed. I made a certificate for her," Rachel Lindemann, fifth grade.

"I want to help people have milk, water and food," Chandani Nigim, fourth grade.

"It makes you feel good about yourself," Yael Karoly, fourth grade.