Teaching Children to Care

Today I wanted to share with you something Matt's third grade class out in Telluride, Colorado just did. One of the parents from Matt's class has been involved with sending boxes of clothing over to Afghanistan for the refugees. The following information comes from an e-mail between that parent and someone that helps distribute the clothing in Afghanistan.

There are hundreds of Pakistanis and Afghans that are fleeing from the Northwest Frontier Provinces of Pakistan into Afghanistan. The camps across Kabul and the adjacent provinces are filling up with those seeking refuge from the Taliban and Al Qaeda. It's particularly tough in the winter as food prices are very high and the UN and World Food Program are short on food and tents. The weather is now getting cold and we are expecting snow. Many Afghans in Kabul continue to scour the garbage and the streets for edibles and combustibles.

After hearing how terrible things are over there, Matt and his class decided to collect clothing to send. The next couple of weeks they collected clothing from home and from family and friends. When the kids were done with the collecting portion of the project, they got boxes and helped pack up all of the clothes. While they were packing up the clothes, one of the kids said to Matt, "I don't know why, but I feel really good." How cool is that?

The next thing they had to do was come up with the money to ship the clothes, so the kids went in supervised groups, to businesses around town and asked for cash donations for their project. The kids raised $450!

With that done, it was time to mail the boxes. They loaded the boxes into a parent's car for the drive to the post office. Telluride is a small town, so Matt and the kids walked. At the post office, the kids were responsible for handling the transactions and a short while later.....their boxes were on their way...all 300 pounds worth!

The boxes get shipped to an Army Colonel who heads up the humanitarian relief. He distributes the boxes to heads of the individual camps and the heads of the camps distribute them directly to the people that need them.

I truly believe that if you teach children compassion and caring, that they will become compassionate, caring adults. Then in turn, hopefully they will pass those qualities on to their children and so on and so on......

So way to go Telluride Elementary School third graders, and way to go Mr. Matt! You should all be very, very proud.