By: Whitney Hofer, School Counselor at Roosevelt Elementary
In January, the Roosevelt student council was brainstorming ideas of something we could do for Kindness month, celebrated in February when I received a call from the Best Friends Mentoring Program. They asked if we could help them raise money for their organization on Giving Hearts Day. Over the nine years that I have been the counselor at Roosevelt Elementary, I have seen their program and mentors help many of our students. I pitched the idea to the student council at our next meeting, and took some time to explain to the members what a mentor is and how the organization matches mentors with students. I explained that mentors volunteer their time to help kids and are not paid. The students thought it was a perfect fit for the February kindness theme. Since mentors show such kindness to kids in Dickinson, we wanted to show them kindness by raising money for their organization.
Giving Hearts Day was on February 10th, and on that special day, when you give to a participating nonprofit organization, your gift may be matched by the Dakota Medical Foundation. The Best Friends staff provided each classroom with jars for students to fill with change beginning February 1st. We had about 8 school days to collect as much as possible for the Best Friends Mentoring Program. They also provided an incentive, the class that collected the most would win a pizza party, the second-place class would get donuts, and the 3rd place class students would each win a toy. It was the student council’s job to explain the purpose behind why we want to support Best Friends Mentoring Program and promote the fundraiser and kindness school wide.
Student council decided to make a video explaining what the organization and mentors do to help kids in our community and how they show kindness. Beckett Wolf, 4th grade member, had the brilliant idea to record our video using Flipgrid. After explaining the organization and how they could help, we closed the video with a favorite quote about kindness, “Always be a little kinder than necessary.” Our video can be viewed at this link https://flipgrid.com/b9b73e13. Student council members also made posters with quotes about kindness and our fundraiser for Best Friends, which we hung around the school.
Roosevelt raised $1,533.22 for Best Friends, and with the match, they received over $3,000 just from Roosevelt’s efforts. Mr. Wolf’s fifth-grade class earned the pizza party, Mrs. Meschke’s second-grade class earned the donuts, and Mrs. O’s first-grade class received the 3rd place toy prize. Angie Rabbitt, Best Friend Mentoring Program Director, was so blown away by how much money Roosevelt raised that she asked if she could come take a picture with Roosevelt’s student council and personally thank them for their efforts. She also gave each member a Giving Hearts Day pin. We are all still beaming with pride at Roosevelt over this successful project.