Clifton's School 8

Students' fund raising fun, effective
Monday, March 9, 2009
BY PATRICIA ALEX
Herald News
STAFF WRITER
(Photo by DON SMITH/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)

Most American kids rarely give the issue of clean drinking water a second thought. But students at Clifton's School 8 have thought about it plenty.

For $1, School 8 students got to bring in stuffed animals and also help a Nicaraguan school.

"Every 15 seconds, a child dies because of a lack of clean water," says fourth-grader Reem Mustafa.

Mustafa and her classmates at the K-5 school in the city's Delawanna section have raised enough money to help deliver water and sanitation to two schools in Nicaragua.
And they've had fun doing it. They charge their schoolmates a dollar to participate in fund-raisers each month, such as crazy hair day, fashion disaster day and, most recently, a day where students could bring stuffed animals to school.

The fun, however, doesn't obscure the goal. The school began working with the group H2O for Life after teacher Cheryl Pienciak read an article about the program while skimming the Readers Digest in a dental waiting room.

The national group has paired 106 schools in North America with schools in developing countries. They help provide running water, latrines and hand-washing stations.

The Clifton students raised $900 to repair a pump that provides clean water to a school in rural Nicaragua. The money also paid for the installation of four toilets. Now the school has raised $900 more for latrines and hand-washing stations at a second Nicaraguan school.

Pienciak and School 8 Principal Steven Cruz said they thought fund raising for the first school would take all year.

"The kids have bought into this whole hog," Cruz said. "There's a lot of enthusiasm."
The project has also taught the Clifton students about the global water crisis.

Nearly 1 billion people live without access to clean water, and more than 2 billion live without access to sanitation facilities. Because of this, an estimated 2 million people die every year from diarrhea-related diseases, the majority of them children under the age of 5, according to H2O for Life.

School 8 has also participated in local charities as well, and Cruz says he plans to keep the good works going.

"The kids need to understand that no matter what you have, there is always somebody you could help," said Pienciak.

Fourth-grader Ashley Mangarella summed it up: "Little hands can make a big difference."

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