| Ferron student council and Steffanie Reeder, who is the director of the High Risk Children’s Center in Ethiopia. |
Students at Ferron Elementary adopted this slogan as their mantra for the week of Feb. 5-9. This effort was to connect them with children in Kersa Illala, Ethiopia. The students at Ferron decided to collect money and help the high risk children in Kersa Illala through the Village of Hope foundation.
Steffanie Reeder, director of the Kersa Illala high risk children’s center, asked Principal Brian Dawes if there was anything his students could do to help. He took the request to the student council and they decided to run with it.
Ferron’s student council, Kiley Jensen, Brittany Payne, Sabrina Bloomer, Natalie Dickman and Bryson Hales organized a fund-raising week to gather the money and invited Reeder to the school on Valentines Day to make the award.
On Feb. 5, students brought pennies to school, on Feb. 6, they switched to nickels. On Feb. 7, they brought dimes. It was quarters on Feb. 8, and on Feb. 9, they brought in dollars. The student council sent jars to each classroom in the mornings to collect the money and they rolled the change into rolls.
| Village of Hope helps high-risk children and their parents. |
On Feb. 14, Reeder came to the school and presented a slide-show with photos of the children at the high risk children’s center in Kersa Illala. The students of Ferron Elementary were shown the living conditions of the Ethiopian children of their same ages.
Following the slide-show, Jensen awarded the donation to Reeder. It totaled $1,448.15. With tears in Reeder’s eyes, the PTO representative added $51.85 to bring the grand total of Ferron’s donation to the Village of Hope to $1,500.
Reeder said, “God bless you children for coming together and working to help children on the other side of the world. This money will go a long way in Ethiopia. We can build a house in Ethiopia with this money.”
More information about and donations can be made to Village of Hope at www.villageofhope-ethiopia.org.