Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Emmet students help tsunami victims

Anybody, at any time, in most circumstances can help someone else.

Cindy Ward's fifth grade class at Emmet Elementary School did just this by raising $390 for the tsunami victims in Asia. The students did what they could to raise money to help those who were left homeless from the freak wave that killed a reported 200,000 people when it hit.

"Our goal was to raise $1 for every person in Emmet," Ward said. Had the students did this, they would have raised more than $600.

Ward said the students came up with the idea after watching what was going on in Indonesia and other Asian nations hit by the killer wave. They talked about tsunamis in class and watched a film about them. The next step was easy  help.

The class, she said, decided it would be a good thing to do because they saw footage of children who had no toys and of people who had lost their homes.

Students brought in their own money, went around to other classrooms collecting money and doing whatever they could to raise funds to help out. "We spent days rolling coins," Ward said. "They really worked hard."

Once the money had been collected, the decision was made to give it to the American Red Cross for the tsunami victims. A representative from El Dorado came and collected the cash. The students were told 96 percent of the funds they donated will reach those who need it most.

The El Dorado representative also gave a presentation about the Red Cross, what it does and how the organization reacts in times of disaster and need.

Kyle Honeycutt acted as class spokesman. He said they thought it would be fun to raise money to help those who lost everything in the tsunami and would help them buy food and clothing.

"We wanted to help," he said. When asked what the hardest part of getting the money together was, Honeycutt said "rolling the pennies." But, he added, the part that was the most fun was stacking the pennies.

"It was a good experience," he said. "We'll do things like this again."

Ward said the class will be rewarded with a pizza party as soon as the details can be worked out.

A tsunami is a huge sea wave caused by submarine disturbance, such as an earthquake or volcano. In this instance, the wave was caused by an earthquake registering 7.5 on the Richter scale.

Ward's class includes: Jasmine Allen, Brittany Ammons, Trey Baker, Dustin Buck, Jacob Carlisle, Bradley Chance, Chad Goodson, Hunter Hawthorne, Kyle Honeycutt, Kelby Hubbard, William Hubbard, James Ivey, Sydney Langston, Brandon Manley, Lavarious Martin, Wade May, Mike McRoy, Brandon Parks, Crystal Tom and Ladd Owens.