Reaching from Harlem to New Orleans-- Using Poetry to Help Students Affected by Hurricane Katrina
The cost of a variety of school supplies, including markers, colored pencils, and construction paper, as well as packing materials, is $580, including shipping and <a target="new" href="http://www.donorschoose.org/html/fulfillment.htm" onclick="g_openWindow('http://www.donorschoose.org/html/fulfillment.htm', 300, 800, 'fulfillwindow');return false;">fulfillment</a>.
Harlem is miles away from New Orleans-- but children are the same everywhere. As a teacher at a public middle school in Harlem, I want my NY students to find a way to help their peers in New Orleans who are going through so much pain and uncertainty right now.
I teach 60 seventh graders at a public school of 900 students. 91% of my students receive a free lunch. Many of them come from families and backgrounds that are extremely troubled, and for that reason, I believe that they are in a good position to understand at least a fraction of the pain that middle schoolers in New Orleans might be feeling right now.
It\'s important for my students to realize that suffering is bigger than what we see here in New York City, and to know that hope in the midst of suffering unites us as human beings no matter what our location. That\'s why I believe that my classes must take advantage of this opportunity to reach out to seventh graders in New Orleans. My classes would like to mail a classroom care package to one of the middle schools hardest hit by Katrina. We plan to send letters of encouragement to the New Orleans students. We also want to send pictures of our classroom and poems about the different ways we\'ve dealt with pain. It\'s a small gesture, but maybe knowing that a class in Harlem cares about them will encourage students in New Orleans.
My class specifically wants our care package to be an art/poetry package. When my students are going though a hard time, I encourage them to draw pictures and write poems that describe the pain they are feeling, and they\'ve said this helps them through their pain. My class wants to give students in New Orleans a chance to use pictures and words to express their grief (and we are hoping that they will write back and share some of their poems with us). We are proposing to send construction paper, markers, colored pencils, silver gel pens, and stickers to students in New Orleans so that they will have the materials they need to display everything they are feeling through poems and pictures.
Please consider giving my class the opportunity to reach beyond Harlem to their peers who are struggling in New Orleans.
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