La Grande Middle School fundraiser nets $1,452 for quake relief

La Grande Middle School seventh-graders Miranda Putnam, left, and Madison Butcher raised $317 for Haiti through a bake sale. The money was given to the LMS Haiti fundraiser, which collected a total of $1,452.33. - DICK MASON/The Observer

The La Grande Middle School seventh-graders recently helped spearhead an LMS fundraising effort for the people of Haiti, a drive that generated $1,452.33, all of which is being given to the Red Cross.

“The whole staff is so proud of the students. This community is so generous,’’ said Anne Marie Fritz, an LMS social studies teacher who helped oversee the drive.

Butcher and Putnam raised the largest portion of the $1,452.33, collecting $317 at a bake sale outside an Island City store. The girls, braving cold conditions, sold cookies, brownies and bread they had baked. Their sale started slowly “The hardest part was waiting (for people to start buying items),’’ Miranda Putnam said.

Once word got about who the sale was benefiting, it heated up like a microwave. The seventh-graders made their $317 in just four hours.

So committed to the Haiti fundraiser were Madison and Miranda they even searched for a lost cat — a lost feline for which there was a $50 reward for finding. If the girls had found the cat, the money would have been added to the Haiti fund drive.

“We found a cat but it was the wrong one,’’ Madison said.

Fellow LMS seventh-grader Jacob Comfort also lent a major hand to the fundraiser, contributing $100 he had earned last summer.

Jacob, Madison and Miranda are members of the LMS White Team, which started the “Kids Care About Haiti!’’ fundraiser. Many White Team members told Fritz about how shocked they were by the news reports coming out of Haiti following the earthquake.

“How can we help?’’ was a question Fritz was asked often by her students.

The LMS teacher told the students that while they could not fly to Haiti, “doing a lot of little things can have a huge impact.’’

Such advice helped inspire the students to step forward.

The LMS White Team is one of two the school’s seventh- and eighth-graders are a part of. The teams attend classes together and each have a separate core set of teachers. Each seventh- and eighth-grader belongs to one team. LMS  sixth-graders have their own team.

The LMS White Team members made a point of making everyone in their school a part of the “Kids Care About Haiti!’’ fundraiser.

“They united for a common cause,’’ Fritz said. “They told me, ‘We (the school) are all in this together,’ ’’

The students began the fundraiser with a solid base of knowledge after receiving instruction on Haiti and its history from their teachers. The school’s seventh-graders then gave presentations on Haiti to the sixth-graders, who then also played a key role in the fundraiser.

Fritz is struck by the strong level of interest LMS students are showing in Haiti. Many come to her every day to talk about the latest developments.

“They care so much.’’

Fritz is heartened by students’ awareness and interest in the world outside Northeast Oregon. This bodes well for the future of our society as a whole, she said.

“Many will be voters in five years,’’ Fritz said. “We have potentially strong citizens.’’

LMS Principal Kyle McKinney was struck by how many students spent time on their weekends raising money for the project.

“That impressed the heck out of me,’’ he said. “We have good kids at the middle school.’’