A group of first grader students are showing us all that age doesn’t matter when it comes to making an impact.
One day Crista Stubbs overheard her first grade students talking amongst themselves about the war in Ukraine. She could tell they were concerned and wanted to come up with a way to educate them on the current crisis.
After a week of learning the students wanted to do something to help the people they learned about, and that’s when they came up with the idea of collecting donations.
“I teach a class of advanced learners, and I always need to think ‘outside of the box’ and help channel their thoughts,” Stubbs told Upson Beacon.
Stubbs, a first grade teacher at Upson-Lee Primary School in Thomaston, Georgia, got to work and began a week-long unit teaching her students about Ukraine, Russia, and what’s being done to help Ukraine.
“We learned beautiful facts about Ukraine, then we made a display with our knowledge.”
But her students still wanted to do more.
Initially they came up with the idea to write letters, but after remembering there might be a language barrier they scrapped that idea.
That’s when Stubbs got thinking. Her brother works for International Justice Mission an organization that helps protect children, and the company is currently stationed in Poland helping families as they cross the border from Ukraine.
What if her students began collecting donations for the organization?
The first graders set up a donation jar in their school’s hallway in front of their Ukraine display and set a goal. They aimed for a reasonable goal and met it in no time.
Every day her students would count the money, and with each passing day they added to the amount they would eventually donate to IMJ.
“Hundreds of students visited the donation jar. Community members visited the school with donations, teachers encouraged their classes to be helpers and give when they can,” Stubbs wrote on Facebook.
In the end, Stubbs’ class donated a total of $4,500.
“Probably the best lesson they learned is that they can be the helpers in the world and one act of kindness will spread like wildfire,” she told WSBTV. “And I’m proud they can count coins.”
Way to go! You showed a lot of people that you don’t have to be a certain age to make a difference in this world. Thank you all for your generosity.
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