Local youth take aim at poverty, hunger

Editor’s note: This is the fourth in a series of five stories detailing the growing efforts of Design for Change Sandpoint as several local youth prepare to represent the United States at the DFC global summit in Rome in November.

By MARY MALONE

Staff writer

SANDPOINT — Ending poverty and hunger are the first of 17 global goals the United Nations aims to accomplish by the year 2030.

This past year, Washington Elementary fifth graders, in collaboration with the sixth-grade class, decided they were going to help in the U.N.’s mission by taking on the two goals for their Design for Change project.

“The biggest thing for me was learning that if you help your community, it can really make a change in the world,” said DFC group member Kai Longanecker, who is heading into the sixth grade this year.

Kai, along with her classmate Ellie Mire, recently detailed their project as the two prepare to head to Rome for the DFC global summit in November. They will be part of about 20 local students representing the United States at the summit, where they will talk about their different DFC projects on the global stage.

The first step of any DFC project, after brainstorming and deciding on a topic, is to gain empathy for the problem through the “feel” stage. The kids in the hunger and poverty group watched a series, “Living on One Dollar,” about a group of male college students, who lived on $1 a day for two months in Guatemala to experience how more than 1.1 billion people around the world could live on less than that each day.

After deciding that they wanted to make care packages for local people in need, Sandpoint Police Officer Spencer Smith, the school resource officer, helped the kids understand the local demographic.

“We were told that men ages 18 to 50 would be the most common living in poverty,” Kai said, adding that they would be the demographic who would benefit the most from the care packages.

So the group began gathering items for the care packages. They contacted companies such as Amazon, Band-Aid and Old Spice, to no avail. Ellie said they decided at that point that it would better to start with the local community.

Jewel Shea, Washington Elementary fifth-grade teacher, said they put together a pitch for downtown businesses, and some of them agreed to carry donation boxes. The kids were looking for common hygiene items, and some people donated money for the kids to purchase the items as well. Once they had all of the items, they began assembling the care packages.

The Sandpoint Police Department took some to distribute to people who may need them, as did Bonner Homeless Transitions, Helping Hands Healing Hearts and Sandpoint Areas Seniors, Inc.

The kids have made other efforts in the areas of hunger and poverty as well, including helping out at the big community garden at Christ Our Redeemer Lutheran Church, which donates a large quantity of fresh produce to the Bonner Community Food Bank. Last summer, the girls said, the church donated over 400 pounds to the food bank.

The fifth- and sixth-grade classes spent some time at the garden this year. Ellie and Kai said they cleared out rocks and put pipes together for the water system. Other students filled the beds with dirt and did some planting among other tasks.

“It was a lot of fun — It was a good day,” Shea said.

As the group prepares to head to Rome, the girls said they hope to give students from around the world ideas, such as the care packages, that they might be able to implement in their communities as well.

“They are going to make an impact, just wait and see,” said Ann Dickinson, the Washington Elementary sixth-grade teacher who implemented DFC at the school.

The students in the DFC Poverty and Hunger group need community support in order to represent the United States at this year’s global summit. The kids are asking if those in local real estate industries would be willing to help them reach their goal of $7,500. Donations are tax deductible through the nonprofit Walk For HOPE and can be mailed to Design for Change Sandpoint, P.O. Box 1585, Sandpoint, Idaho, 83864. Checks should be made out to Walk For Hope and have “Design For Change Poverty and Hunger” in the memo.

In addition, each group has a separate GoFundMe page for people to choose which project they would like to support. For information or to donate to the plastic reduction and recycling effort, go to bit.ly/2OoZkGU. Follow Design for Change Sandpoint on Facebook for project information and future fundraising efforts.

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