By Justin Green
Special to the Express
Around this holiday season annually, many non-profits discover new& inventive ways to donate and give back to those who are under-privileged and are in need throughout the world. This is no different for a truly unique group of children located at Rivercrest Elementary with a passion to help the less fortunate. With the exceptional leadership of their teacher Mrs. Diane Larson, students within her 3rd, 4th& 5th grade APEX classes have developed a community service project targeted towards raising money as well as awareness to combat the lack of a clean water source in the country of Africa.
Mrs. Larson stated,“My classes’ theme for the year is water, so after the children researched information, completed in-class projects and visited the Bartlett Water Dept. and learned how water is made clean, they learned that some countries currently do not have an endless supply of this natural resource as we do. The children instantly recognized this as a crisis and wanted to do something to help find a solution to this problem.” Student Nikolas Dalton &Kaleb Davis shared, “Everyone needs clean water to drink and use. 800 million people in Kenya have to walk miles to get buckets of water that’s not even clean. We want to help them have water like us.”
Move over UPS! Here’s RPS: The Rivercrest Postal Service. Created by the bright young minds at the elementary school, this innovative approach to combining fund raising with education has allowed students to not only raise money towards supporting The Water Project, a charity dedicated to help provide clean water to those in countries without by constructing wells within villages, but has given them the opportunity to sharpen & develop writing skills in the process. Students not only design & sell their created stamps to students, faculty & staff, but they also have a delivery service to collect & distribute letters throughout the school. “Every class has their own mailbox to put letters in from everyone that buys stamps. Stamps cost 5 cents and we put them on the envelopes we make. We can write letters to our teachers and even our friends. It’s really fun and the money will help us build a well to put clean water in for them!” studentsKatilyn Jennings& Aaron Shankle said.
So far, the young entrepreneurs have raised a total of $43 after only operating their postal service for a week. They have a current goal of $100 to fulfill their pledge, but will continue raising money until they have collected as much as they can. To learn more about this non-profit organization and their charity, plus ways you can assist by starting your own fund-raiser, visit www.thewaterproject.org.
