Full of Peace Power, Center Fundraise for the Hunger Walk
This year, the Hilltop Scholars Program is focused on providing monthly volunteer opportunities for students in order to promote leadership skills, personal development, and involvement in our community. For October, we paired up with Peace Lutheran Church to raise money for the Pierce County Hunger Walk. Last year, we collected money for the Pennies for Peace in a jar and did pretty well, and so I figured it would be a good idea to do that again. At each tutoring day, I passed around a jar for students to put coins or any amount they would like to contribute in. I was delighted by the generosity of some our students. It’s good to see that some scholars even took the initiative to ask for the jar on the days I didn’t bring it out. On the other hand, there are our silly students who tried to put candies in it and said, “Hey, it’s a hungry jar.”
A new element that’s incorporated into this year’s service opportunities is to recruit student leaders to help organize the event. This will allow the students to lead an event without having to be in an officer position of a club. I asked Nicole Jordan to help me and she was very eager to do so. After collecting merely coins in the jar, I asked Nicole to be in charge of asking for donations and the girl became the mafia on the students and staff. She came back beaming with a lot of greens in the jar. Trevor was one of her main targets.
On the day of the walk, the church members and our students gathered at Peace to carpool. Participating students were Nicole, Juwan, Devin, Grant, Vince, and Phu Duc. After collecting some final donations from the adults, the jar came out to be around $400! That’s not even counting the unknown amount that the church raised. Juwan, Devin and Nicole poured the jar out to count it themselves. It was funny watching them organize the giant pile of coins. One person would be in charge of putting the pennies in stacks of ten, the other with the dimes, etc. They were particularly careful about separating the ones that have been counted and writing down what they have so far. We have some potential future accountants.
The Walk was located at First Christian Church (6th and Orchard) near Wilson High School. We registered and handed our jar over. The lady looked at our jar full of coins and didn’t know what to do with it, but someone in charge said it was fine. In fact, it was so intriguing that she asked us if her photographer could take a picture of us with the jar. Little Jamieson (Malcolm’s son) was so cute holding the jar in our picture.
The day was a bit chilly, but the walk was beautiful with the change of colors among the trees and creepy Halloween decorations out on people’s porch. There were a lot of participants who took their dogs with them and Jamieson wanted protection from the scary doggies. Teresa, Hilltop Scholars’ new social work intern, was full of energy and speed and she walked past our group. Daniel, Audrey, and Pastor John met up with us and joined us for the rest of the walk. People had the choice to do the 5K or the 10K. The boys wanted to do the 10K and so they went running off. They actually caught up with the rest of the group who did the 5K. Grant told me that they saw two dead raccoons and Grant picked one up to try to freak the other boys.
There were a lot of goodies waiting when we were finished. They had chili, hot chocolate, fruits, and even cotton candy. After lunch, we headed back to Peace earlier than anticipated. Mission Hunger Walk completed. I would definitely recommend doing charity walks like the AIDS and Hunger Walk again next year. It’s an opportunity for the kids to be out in the community and see people come together for a good cause. I saw leadership skills in the student leader and generosity in donations from our students. Moreover, what a great way to see our city and spend time with the wonderful people at Peace.
Check out our great pics in the Hunger Walk Slideshow Sidebar!
Cam Tu
