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Link to article By Betsy Lopez Fritscher
RRSTAR.COM Posted Feb 04, 2010 @ 10:51 PMPOPLAR GROVE - A combined idea bytwo North Boone Middle School students has turned into a schoolwide campaign tocollect donated jeans for earthquake victims in Haiti. Melanie Davis, 13, and Angel Guzman, 12, independently went before theirschool's administration two weeks ago to seek approval for a fundraiser inhopes of making a global difference. "My cousins were all watching Haiti news, and in the video, they wereuncovering the body of a baby and it was sad," Guzman said. "I saw them walkingall poor and stuff and came up with an idea." Guzman didn't know what he wanted to collect but believed the school should dosomething. As for Davis, she was doing some online shopping when she stumbledupon retailer Aeropostale's community project Teens for Jeans, which offered tomatch a pair of new jeans to the first 100,000 donated to send a total of200,000 pairs to Haiti. "I didn't know this many people would participate," Davis said. "I'm reallyhappy. There's a lot of kids there that are poor and need this." The school launched the project last week with the help of the school's NaturalHelpers group with the goal of donating 500 pairs of jeans. There are 270students at the school; 350 pairs had been received as of today. John Perez, 14, was instantly smitten with the jeans drive and worked withfellow students in Natural Helpers to spread the word about the drive. He beganto solicit donations from classmates on his MySpace and Facebook pages, butthat wasn't enough. He even managed to donate 17 pairs of jeans to the school'sdrive after donations of denim from his parents and two siblings. "I went around my house to get them from family," Perez said. North Boone Middle School Assistant Principal Kevin Finnegan is proud to seestudents bringing in what they can for the cause. "It's been such a student-run thing from the start and hasn't been done by theadults in the building," he said. "They came to me with the idea, and that gotthe ball rolling." Danielle Kiely, manager of the Rockford Aeropostale store in CherryVale Mall,said the Teens for Jeans campaign is held annually and this year is focusing ondisaster relief efforts. "Usually, they go to charities and shelters, but due to the disaster in Haitithey decided to give jeans to Haiti as well and upped our goals," she said."It's the third year we've done it, but it does really well. It is awesome." The jeans will be dropped off at the Aeropostale store next week, Davis said. "This is a big deal," said eighth-grade teacher Cari Weiffenbach, whosupervises the Natural Helpers. "It was thinking outside the box and seeing thebig picture." Staff writer Betsy López Fritscher can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or at 815-544-3452. |
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