100th Day Celebration
Benefits Animal Care League

The room mothers of one second grade class challenged
the children to raise $100 for charity to celebrate
the 100th day of school this year.  The children met
and far exceeded their goal and voted to donate the
proceeds to the Animal Care League in Oak Park. 

As soon as the challenge was issued the nineteen
students began working with their parents to earn
money that they’d never get to spend.  Classroom
discussion was ripe with comparisons and questions . . .

“You got paid to do that?”

“I have to do that as part of my regular allowance.”

“You get allowance?  I have to wait until I’m ten!”

“My neighbor let me help them shovel, since it was for
charity.”

Each day the children would add their contributions.
They would calculate how much was left to reach the
goal.   They counted the money over and over in
different ways.

The children also had to talk to the adults in their lives about what makes a good charity and what are the
favorite charities.  Two of the children in class found out that when their moms go to work, it is to help an organization that would be considered a charity.  The children knew that their mom’s work, but now take special pride in the fact that mom helps others every day. 

After deciding on a favorite charity each child wrote
a persuasive piece to help inform and convince their
classmates of the ‘best’ charity.  Once these were presented to the class the charities were classified . . . do they help people, animals or nature . . . do they serve locally, nationally or world wide. 

Next the children voted on which category was most
important to them.  They decided on helping animals,
then voted amongst the charities that help animals.
The Animal Care League received the most votes.
Later, when the children were excitedly talking about
the outcome, several girls said that their Brownie
troop had been to the Animal Care League to help and
one or two of the children said that their beloved
pets had come from there. 

All in all the children worked to earn over $135.00,
dollar by dollar and dime by dime, which they gladly
gave to the Animal Care League.

Clifford is Waiting to Go Home...come have a visit.