Haiti earthquake offers many lessons
1
2
EASTHAMPTON - City students are working hard for children they've never met.
They've dumped their piggy banks and carried out chores to earn money. They organized fund drives. They assembled first aid kits. Their efforts will translate to helping children still suffering in the aftermath of the Jan. 12 earthquake in Haiti when a local doctor travels there ferrying supplies White Brook Middle School students collected.
"This is going to really help kids' lives," said Anna Marhefka, 13, a peer leader at White Brook. She was working with other students Friday, Linsey Branscomb, Haley McFarland, Alli Dabek and Katie Collins, all 13, as they hovered over cardboard boxes stocked with cotton swabs, rubbing alcohol, antibiotic ointment, children's aspirin and vitamins.
The supplies they helped collect now will be passed off to Dr. Mark Bigda, of Southampton, who says people will still need help once the first responders are gone. In a few weeks - nearly three months after the tragedy stuck - Bigda will travel to Haiti with the 84 vitamins, 106 ointments and 123 over-the-counter pain relievers Easthampton students collected.
Victoria Koreza, adviser of the peer leadership club at White Brook, collaborated with Bigda, a member of the Mustard Seed Missions in Hatfield. Even before the Jan. 12 earthquake, the mission had regularly visited Haiti to hold medical clinics in remote rural villages to improve community health, environmental conditions and education.
"Right when the earthquake hit we were like #how can we help?'," said Dabek, a peer leader at White Brook.
Every school in the city devoted time and resources to relief efforts in Haiti.
Students spread the word about their donation drives across classrooms, school buildings and the greater community. They made announcements over the school loudspeaker about their efforts, and mounted posters with information on how to donate, flyers for fundraising events and red crosses recognizing donor names.
Incentives to help included a day for participating students to wear hats and slippers to school.
"I loved wearing them," Marhefka said. "I was sliding around the halls."
Students raised nearly $4,000 for Red Cross relief efforts and filled numbers of boxes with supplies.
"I'm proud of the whole Easthampton school district," Marhefka said.
Teachers used the efforts to help the people of Haiti in curriculum in other ways: students studied how Tylenol pinpoints pain in science, and in social studies they explored the history of Haiti. In English class they spend time writing essays reflecting on news articles about the devastation there.
At Maple Elementary School, Christine Strong's second-grade class shifted its study about earthquakes in general to look at how this particular quake took thousands of lives and destroyed schools, hospitals and homes. At Easthampton High School, librarian Robin Rowe and Pioneer Valley Red Cross fundraising coordinator Paige Thayer explained how student dollars would be used.
Before the earthquake even hit Haiti, Rowe taught, 80 percent of its people were below the poverty line while 50 percent of the population was illiterate. The international attention - including the help students gave from Easthampton - presents the country with an opportunity, according to Rowe.
"This is a building point for them - they can become a better Haiti than they were before," Rowe said. "We can help them build a strong foundation."
Catherine Baum can be reached at cbaum@gazettenet.com.
