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.