Students Raise $5,000 for Bombing Victims

When 11-year-old Stephanie Garden watched television news reports about the devastation that occurred in Oklahoma City on April 19, she reacted in disgust.

“We’re all human beings,” she said. “How can someone do that to another person?”

Taking note of the American Red Cross relief number flashing over images of rescue teams frantically digging through the rubble, Stephanie turned to her mother and offered to donate the $50 she’d saved up from past birthdays to the relief effort.

Ruth Garden smiled and picked up the phone to contact the Red Cross.

“They lost a lot of things so fast,” said Stephanie. “I thought I could at least give them some of what I have.”

But her efforts didn’t stop there.

Overwhelmed by the increasing toll of fatalities resulting from the car bomb explosion, Stephanie returned to school from spring break a week later and spearheaded a fund-raising program at Abraham Joshua Heschel Day School in Northridge.

To date, that effort has led to the collection of more than $5,000 that will be sent Thursday to Oklahoma City bombing victims and their families.

The nearly 500 Jewish private school students also will send poems, letters, artworks and self-crafted toys to a Christian organization in Oklahoma City that is endeavoring to bring some stability back into the lives of those affected by the bombing.

“They need medical supplies, burial funds and money for food,” said Stephanie. “A lot of them don’t have jobs anymore and some of the kids don’t have parents. We want to let them know that we can help.”

Stephanie’s homeroom classmates sent solicitation letters to local businesses and households and monitored their success on an in-class computer spreadsheet. Other students, meanwhile, reflected on their own experiences with the Northridge earthquake and crafted projects that say “We understand” or exhort the Oklahoma City victims to “Hold on.”

“We felt so fortunate as a community to have lived through a major disaster without so many lives lost,” said teacher Nancy Nicholls, whose homeroom class coordinated the fund-raising project.

“These children were really impressive in their commitment to this project,” she added. “They’ve shown an amazing amount of generosity.”

Nicholls said that the root of that generosity can be found in the cover letter her class drafted for the Oklahoma City victims.

In the letter, Nicholls said, the students explained: “In the Jewish tradition, if you help save one person’s life, it’s as if you save the whole world.”