Students Participate in National Roundtable for Haiti Relief
This week elementary schools and middle schools across the country, from Seattle to Queens, are voting in the first-ever National Penny Harvest Roundtable to help bring much needed funds to Haiti. Penny Harvest students are doing online, through a voting website, what they have been doing in their classrooms for the past three months: learning about community issues, evaluating them, and making grants. But this time it’s on an international level.
Common Cents created The Haiti Relief and Recovery Fund, a “giving circle” of thousands of students from across the country, immediately following the earthquake to capture children’s desire to aid the victims of last January’s earthquake that devastated Haiti and provide a way for them to come together and make big grants. Students, like their better known philanthropic counterparts — Bill Clinton, George Bush, and the Red Cross — now have their own fund to contribute to the recovery. Over 150 schools donated some of their Penny Harvest money to the fund, which now totals about $26,000.
To make the giving meaningful, Common Cents created a curriculum that introduced students to the six issues countries face after a natural disaster: health and hygiene, education, food and nutrition, safe shelters and rebuilding, clean water and sanitation, and refugees. In addition, Common Cents partnered with four organizations — Clean Water for Haiti, Ecole le Bon Samaritain, Haitian Women for Haitian Refugees, and Konbit Pou Edikasyon -– all of which are working locally in Haiti, and are addressing at least one of the six issues. Now, in true roundtable form, the students are discussing which issues are important to them, and making the tough decision about how they want to split up the funds between organizations. Once every school has cast its vote, Common Cents will announce the totals and each organization will receive their share of the money.
These are the voting results as of April 26, 2010:
Click for official Global Relief Fund Page
