BOYLE HEIGHTS : Students Work for Trip to Valley Forge
Fifth-graders at Euclid Avenue Elementary School are raising money to visit Valley Forge, Pa., in April.
This year, the school hopes to raise enough money to send 50 students on a Freedoms Foundation program that will lodge and teach the students about the site of Gen. George Washington’s encampment during the winter of 1777-78, said Victoria Steinitz, coordinator of the Euclid Magnet School. The trip, the school’s third, coincides with the fifth-grade history lessons that cover the Colonial period and the American Revolution, she said.
“It’s not a vacation. It’s really a learning experience,” Steinitz said. “It’s like taking the classroom out into the field.”
Every Thursday the students and their parents bring in baked goods for sale, and Steinitz said they plan a turkey raffle for Thanksgiving. They also have garage sales, candy sales and a swim-a-thon, and they solicit donations from the business community throughout the year, she said.
The trip costs $735 per student, including air fare, lodging and food.
The students qualify and are ranked through parental permission, teacher evaluation and community members’ scoring of their leadership qualities, cooperation and respect. If the school raises only enough to send 25 students, then the top 25 students will go, Steinitz said. Last year, 28 students attended a five-day program that took them to Washington, Philadelphia and New York, she said.
When they return, the students put on programs for donors and the school in which they share what they have learned.
Information: (213) 263-6792.
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