White Brook students ante up to help Toy Fund effort
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EASTHAMPTON - White Brook Middle School teacher Holly Dombkowski believes the lessons children can learn from the simple act of giving to a good cause are endless.
Not to mention the creative ways they can come up with to raise that money.
One year, students baked dog biscuits and sold them, raising a whopping $1,000 for a local animal shelter. Another year, students brought in family recipes, which went into a book that was sold to send money to the Jimmy Fund.
This year, they sold smencils.
What's that you say? What in the world are smencils?
Weeeeell, it's sort of just what it sounds like. Pencils that smell.
They sell for $1 each, and for each one that is sold, the class gets 40 cents. With sales booming all through December, students sold over 900 smencils, which netted them $350 for charity.
The charity the students settled on this year was the Sidney F. Smith Toy Fund, a Gazette-sponsored holiday fund drive that gives certificates redeemable at participating area stores to families in need to help make their Christmas a little more fun.
Smencils, Dombkowski said, are pencils made from recycled newspapers. They are infused with different scents that only children can fully appreciate: root beer, very berry, cinnamon, bubble gum, grape, tropical blast, and so on, for a total of about 10 different scents.
She said smencils have been sold at the school before and they prove to be popular.
"It's really kind of a hot item," she said. "They're something that's earth-friendly and the kids love 'em."
After the winter break, the students will decide on a different fund-raiser to help defray the costs of an upcoming field trip, but as Dombkowski puts it, "The smencil is just for charity."
Students will continue selling them after the holiday break as well, and give the rest of the money raised in the effort to the Easthampton Community Center.
A teacher for 30 years, Dombkowski said it's long been part of her mission to teach her students about the importance of giving to others.
"I really stress with the kids about being able to give back and how important community is," she said.
Mostly, the money was raised in short (10 minutes to be exact) spells of selling smencils at a table in the hallway around the time school starts. Each comes in a case, and as it turns out the smencils are so popular they practically sell themselves.
While not all students get to actually sell the smencils, all have a chance to buy them, so every single student in the school is getting to be part of the effort to help other families in need this year.
"I think they feel really great about being able to donate the money," said Dombkowski. "It's been a really positive experience."
