They’ve made a $1000 donation to Hudson Valley Honor Flight
“We are pleased to announce that our school raised $1000 for the April 2024 Honor Flight!”
Obviously, the majority of the Cornwall community was not at last Friday morning’s assembly at Willow Ave. Elementary School.
But, the community needs to know what transpired there. And who best to learn about it from? The third graders of Kelly Hogan and Cindy Bell’s class.
Pretend you were there, and read what seven of the brave students from third grade said that morning:
Reader 1: Good morning to our guests and our Willow community! We are here today to present a gift to the Hudson Valley Honor Flight.
How did this all begin?
Back in December, our class was inspired after reading a Scholastic magazine article about a class in the mid-west that raised money for an honor flight. After reading the article, we decided that we could do this too!
Reader 2: We started to brainstorm ideas. Our PTO sometimes sells popcorn on Fridays and we decided to ask them if we could take over one of those days. Of course our generous PTO said yes! Then, we asked our principal, Mrs. Buchholz if we could do it and she said yes? Our PTO president, Rachel Dass, would pop the corn and we would bag it in our pre-labeled bags. We agreed to call it “Popcorn For A Purpose”.
Reader 3: Next, we had to advertise. Mrs. Hogan showed us how to use Canva (a website where you can create posters digitally) and how to write an advertisement. We created advertisements, they were printed and we hung them up in the school.
Reader 4: The week of the event, Mrs. Hogan challenged us to write an advertisement that we could say over morning announcements. Some of us were up for the challenge and made those announcements daily. We also had to label all the popcorn bags and we did this during indoor recess.
Reader 5: Finally, we had to bag and then sell the popcorn during lunchtime. We all took turns helping out. Mrs. Bell helped count up the money that we raised.
We held two more fundraisers – ‘Hearts for Heroes” and “Pops for Patriots” For those two fundraisers we challenged the students of our school to earn their dollar by doing a chore at home.
Reader 6: For “Hearts for Heroes” students received a scratch off heart to decorate and to add to our Hearts for Heroes bulletin board. For “Pops for Patriots” we sold ice pops. Each time, we advertised and helped with the fundraisers during each lunch period.
Reader 7: Our class led the charge but it was our school community that came together to raise the money. We are so proud of everyone’s efforts and donations.
After the children did their presentation, and gave Hudson Valley Honor Flight Board Member Tom Walraven the $1000 donation check, Mrs. Hogan said at the assembly how proud she and Mrs. Bell are of their students
“Mrs. Bell and I wanted to show our students that you can make a difference in your community at any age. To do that we guided them through the process of raising money for an honorable cause. We let them take the lead.” she said. “I want to thank everybody in our school community who helped us in our fundraising efforts. Mrs. Buchholz for saying “Yes” to our idea. Rachel Dass and our PTO for donating the popcorn and helping to pop the popcorn. All the teachers, for collecting the money the morning of the fundraisers. All the lunch monitors for assisting us in crowd control during our sales at lunch. All the students at Willow who participated in our Fundraisers especially the ones who did chores to earn their dollars or went into their piggy banks. And finally to my class family who showed such enthusiasm and excitement for this project. They fill my heart everyday!”
The teachers weren’t the only ones who were proud.
“On behalf of the entire staff at Honor Flight we sincerely thank the students of Mrs. Hogan and Mrs. Bell’s class, along with the support of all the students and staff at Willow,” Walraven said after the event. “It was a wonderful day and an extremely generous donation!”
