Coffee + change = fundraiser

SANDPOINT — How many times can you make a difference and get your morning coffee at the same time?

Thanks to Sandpoint Charter School students, today’s one of those times.

SCS ninth-graders are holding a change drive from 7-8 a.m. today at the school. In exchange for their change, drivers will receive coffee and a donut. All proceeds will benefit the Haiti Medical Mission of Memphis, whose hospital in Port-au-Prince was one of the few left relatively undamaged by the 7.0 magnitude earthquake which devastated the country.

Teacher Jennifer Greve suggested helping Haiti to get students thinking about helping others and is proud of how the students have taken the idea and run with it, generating a number of ways to raise money.

“They’re really doing a great job,” she said.

In addition to today’s change drive, SCS students also are contacting local businesses to see if they can place donation jars at the stores. So far, more than 60 businesses have accepted the students’ challenge to help the Haitian people by agreeing to host a donation jar.

Students also plan to set up booths on Feb. 6 at local businesses — so far, Yoke’s, Safeway, Walmart and Schweitzer have agreed to be sites — to seek additional donations for the program.

SCS has joined forces with Sagle Elementary sixth graders, Waldorf fourth-graders and students in Bonners Ferry, who pledged their assistance and fundraising efforts.

Built in 1997, Haiti Medical Mission of Memphis’ clinic in Croix de Bouquets is one of the few in the Port-au-Prince area that is intact. It also is just a few miles from an open field that the United Nations is organizing into a tent city that will be home to as many as 500,000 left homeless by the earthquake, said Paola Peirano, whose sister worked with the group several years ago and with which she still has close ties.

Patty Peirano Osorio spent five months in Haiti in 2003, providing dental care and teaching dental education. She is planning a return trip in late March to again help the people she grew to love during her first visit.

Paola Peirano said her sister will transport items bought with the students’ fundraising efforts along with her when she goes to Haiti on March 26.

Taking part in the drives makes them realize the difference they can make in someone’s life, said Shelby Baughn, Sammy Goding and Savannah Snyder.

A fight with a parent or a bad grade on a test takes on a whole new perspective when you compare it to what students their own age are going through in Haiti, Baughn and Snyder said.

It’s inspiring to think, added Goding, that you can make a difference in someone’s life.

“We think what we’re going through is hard until you realize what they are dealing with, especially now,” said Snyder.