Hope students help youngsters affected by Hurricane Harvey

HOPE — Casey Lane peeked over the top of some files at Clark Fork's Wampus Cat mascot.

Casey was among 13 Hope Elementary kindergartners excited, as well as a little nervous, to see Wampy and a bunch of Clark Fork High School students enter their classroom Tuesday morning. As the kindergartners collected more school supplies than any of the other classes at Hope Elementary, the visit was well deserved — as was the ice cream sandwiches provided to the kids by CFHS instructor KC MacDonald and his leadership class.

CFHS sophomore Cicorra Stiles took on the task of telling the kids why they were there, and when she asked if they knew, the shyness was gone as a couple of the students spoke up.

"Because we got the most supplies," answered one student.

After asking why they brought in the supplies, another student answered, "For the other school that got destroyed," followed by Casey who said, "it was a hurricane."

The school supplies will, in fact, go to students at Jessup Elementary in Houston, Texas. The school principal, Ryan Pavone, told MacDonald that while the school made it through Hurricane Harvey without damage, many of the families lost everything.

"I think it's a really good idea to get the rest of the community involved and make these kids aware of what's going on," Stiles said. "I think that Texas is really going to appreciate it, and this is kind of setting (the kids) up to know what is going on in the world and to help and do their best, even if it's something little."

The CFHS leadership class is made up of students in grades nine-11, and to help out the Texas elementary kids, the high schoolers challenged a couple of local elementary schools to collect as many supplies as possible. The class that collected the most would get the ice cream. The challenge was also set forth to Washington Elementary students who collected 214 pounds of school supplies. (See related Daily Bee article from Oct. 15 at bit.ly/2ivaUAH).

Rather than determining the winner by weight, as was the case at Washington Elementary, Hope Elementary's winning class was chosen by the number of items. The kindergartners collected 100 items. In second place was first grade with 76 items, and the high school teens brought enough ice cream sandwiches to surprise that class as well. The combined second and third-grade class collected 31 items, and two combined fourth-, fifth- and six-grade classes collected 31 and 28 items for a grand total of 266 items collected by Hope students.

The Hope classes were divided up by homeroom, and the challenge was organized Cindy Kiebert, the school librarian. Kiebert said she also teaches four sixth-graders advanced math, so they kept track of the items and counted them.

"I was just glad that I could make it happen," Kiebert said.

The Clark Fork students are still gathering items until Thursday, MacDonald said. He has a couple ideas lined up for transport, but is still working on the details. MacDonald adopted the school after he received an email in regard to "Principals Helping Principals," a nationwide effort to help the schools and students affected by Hurricane Harvey.

Mary Malone can be reached by email at mmalone@bonnercountydailybee.com and follow her on Twitter @MaryDailyBee.