Students learn the joys of giving

Jackson Bell

Students at Roosevelt Elementary School are learning that giving

during the holidays is as important as receiving.

About 50 children known as Log Cabin Kids are sewing holiday

stockings and collecting gifts for terminally ill patients at

Childrens Hospital Los Angeles.

“The holidays tend to be a greedy time of the year, and [this

program] takes the kids’ minds off what they are going to get and

instead teaches them to give a little bit,” said Donna Gibbons, a

teacher in the program. “Kids don’t often get to help.”

Log Cabin Kids are students in kindergarten through fifth grade

who participate in the afterschool program in a school bungalow

decorated as a log cabin.

They will donate Christmas and Hanukkah-decorated stockings

stuffed with holiday gifts to “These Three Words,” an organization

that comforts and assists terminally ill children. Gibbons said she

will deliver the gifts during the organization’s Dec. 20 holiday

party.

For children in the day-care program, it’s an opportunity to make

someone else’s day.

“I like this because some kids at the hospital don’t get to go

home for Christmas and it’s not fair that they have to sit around and

act like it’s a normal day,” fifth-grader Sam Harman said.

The project helped fifth-grader Nathan Myer discover his

altruistic side.

“It makes me feel better because I’m having fun as usual, but also

doing it for a good cause,” he said.

Veronica Sanchez, a fourth-grader, agreed.

“I like doing something nice for these kids because they don’t get

to celebrate Christmas or Hanukkah,” she said.

Cash and item donations are being accepted up to the day of the

“These Three Words” Christmas party Dec. 20. For more information,

call the school at 558-4668.