Deer Park Students Raise Nearly $500 in Water Challenge
Students were challenged to drink nothing but water and save the money that would have been spent on other beverages to donate toward a well project.
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Deer Park Elementary School istudents raised nearly $500 to donate to a nonprofit that funds well and water sanitation projects in other countries.
Fifth grade students at Deer Park, which is the New Port Richey area, issued a challenge in November to kids at the school.
The challenge was this: Don't drink soda, milk, sports drinks or juice for a week. Instead, save the money that would have been spent on those beverages and drink only water.
The Pasco County School District posted a video on its website Tuesday that announced the school raised $492.87.
The money is being donated to Water,org, and students hope it funds a well in a country that needs it. Water.org is a nonprofit that funds and aids well and water sanitation projects in developing countries.
The students who issued the challenge had been learning about problems with water quality and access in other countries as part of their classroom curriculums, which came from water.org.
The fifth graders created water-themed superheroes and made water-themed collages with their families. They wrote poems. They teamed up for presentations on the water problems present in developing countries like India, Bangladesh, Honduras and Ethiopia. They experimented with water quality testing. They created an eight-minute PSA video issuing the challenge.
Cheryl Gendebien, one of the three teachers whose classes issued the challenge, said some students found the challenge difficult difficult. Some donated money but didn't tally what they refrained from drinking.
"The point was to empower our students so they in turn could educate and help others, which is really what we wanted from them," Gendebien wrote in an e-mail. "Right now, our students have taken this learning and have identified a new local community problem that they want to build awareness (of)."
Students are leading a electronic waste collection drive at the school bus loop February 2, Gendebien said.
Gendebien and Alondra Beatty-Woodall, another teacher whose class participated in the water challenge, have signed up the students organizing the drive in Disney's Planet Challenge, a competition that rewards teachers and classes that complete conservation-related projects.
