A local teacher's attempt at a significant fundraising effort with her students and those of another classroom went better than expected. It turned out so successful that she plans on incorporating it into her classroom in future years.

Kyrene de la Colina Elementary School second-grade teachers Laura Revenew and Jill Novy wanted to do a service project to benefit a local charity.

They eventually decided on the East Valley Child Crisis Center and since the beginning of January the students had been collecting supplies such as new socks, toys, school supplies and candy.

In total the students filled and decorated 51 boxes and donated them to the center. Revenew delivered the boxes on Valentine's Day. Along with the supplies, each students included a handwritten note inside their box.

"We had been talking about ways that we could help other people and the children kind of ran with the idea of helping other children," Revenew said. "They generated a list of things for other children that they think they would like."

Their classrooms would generally have four end-of-the-quarter parties, but this year Revenew wanted to incorporate fundraising into one of those parties.

She had done something like this previously, but after she saw how her kids took to it this year, she plans to do it on a yearly basis.

"When we came back from winter break, we started thinking about how we could help other people in a service-oriented project," Revenew said. "They jumped on it. Second grade is such a wonderful age. They are just very into helping, and they are just fun. They are starting to develop awareness of other people's feelings."

The collection effort started with a goal of just a few supplies - one pair of socks, a pencil, glue stick, toy, and a piece of candy.

The students responded in full force and when it was all said and done, some boxes had two or three pairs of socks and even more supplies.

"I love this idea - choosing to do a service project around Valentine's Day to support the crisis center," Colina principal Kelley Brunner said. "It was just a nice way to show you can do things for others and it doesn't always have to be about you."

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