Schools

$6,000 Raised from Hair Bows, Penny Wars for School in India

St. Anastasia School raises $6,000 to help with infrastructure and curriculum costs for a Catholic school in Jamshedpur, India.

NEWTOWN SQUARE–For this year's Catholic Schools Week–the annual celebration of Catholic schools contributing to a service project– helped fulfill the wish of the late Father John Deeney, also the great uncle of sixth-grade teacher John Gill at the school.

His wish? To support St. Paul Miki School in Jamshedpur, India, one of the Catholic schools Deeney founded, by building a complete infrastructure for the school where students can learn peacefully without the disruption of weather or other factors.

In a video presentation that Gill made for the students and staff at St. Anastasia School, he states, "Father Greg Da Silva, principal at St. Paul Miki School, is trying desperately to raise money so that his students can have a decent place to learn."

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He continued, "There are no side walls for the school. They almost have no protection from weather. Wind and rain can cause class to be greatly disrupted. Animals like poisonous snakes that live in the field nearby can wander in at any time."

And with that, fundraising at St. Annie's was kicked into full gear. 

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Brad Kohlhepp, St. Annie's principal, said they've done fundraising projects before but never did he see this much contribution–about $6,000 in total–from the school community.

"More people from the community came to us wanting to contribute," said Kohlhepp. "In the four years I've been here, we've come close to raising $2,000 but nothing like this. This project was powerful. It was a global learning experience for everyone."

As fundraising efforts spread throughout the school through penny wars–loose change was collected for several days in buckets by each grade level in which the winning grade received a pizza party–sixth-graders Julia Riccitelli and Gianna Delbonifro wanted to do more than the change collection.

Julia said she was inspired to make hair bows after browsing through a cheerleading magazine and showed Gianna how to make them as well. Together, the young entrepreneurs sold $300-worth of the bows during lunch.

The bows became a hot item at the school and Julia said, "There's always a really long line. We sold out the first time we sold them during first period."

From zebra prints to glitter and rhinestones each hair bow was assembled diligently by the two girls, sometimes late into the night.

"We really wanted to do it to help his [John Gill] great uncle's dream come true through this," said Gianna. And although they worked on the bows after a long day of school work, Gianna said they didn't give up.

"We remembered all the kids there, who have to sit on dirt and only have a tent over it and poisonous snakes can come into the classroom," said Gianna of what kept them going.

According to Kohlhepp, the donation will go straight towards the St. Paul Miki's School building project as well as textbooks for the students. Kohlhepp said St. Annie's plans to contribute more to the India school through future fundraising events.

"It's just a great way to continue Father Deeney's legacy," said Kohlhepp.


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