Above: After their fundraiser, Mrs. Durst’s and Mrs. Lee’s classes got to come to Convoy of Hope’s Global Headquarters & Training Center, take a tour, and meet Convoy President Hal Donaldson.
Hurricanes Helene and Milton made news headlines for weeks after the storms passed. After Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida’s Big Bend region, the storm swept through the Southeast and dumped trillions of gallons of rain, especially in western North Carolina, where communities will be recovering from the damage for years.
Right after Helene made landfall, Aleisha Durst’s third-grade class at RISE elementary in Neosho, Missouri, started a unit about weather. They learned about the effects of hurricanes, comparing damage from 2004’s Category 4 Hurricane Katrina to Hurricane Helene’s damage.
As the class paid close attention to weather reports, the students took special interest in tracking Hurricane Milton as it made its way through the Gulf of Mexico. They wanted to see if it would be similar to Hurricane Helene.
Originally, Mrs. Durst planned to have her class predict the weather as an assignment, or maybe create their own news broadcast. But learning about hurricanes and the devastation they wreak on communities every year sparked an idea in this class of third graders.
The students came to Mrs. Durst and Mrs. Lee, another third-grade teacher, and asked what they could do to help people affected by the hurricanes.
Mrs. Durst and Mrs. Lee changed their plans, showed great flexibility as educators, and encouraged the kindness their students wanted to show people in need.
“We let the kids come up with ideas on how they would like to raise money,” Durst said. “The kicker was that they were in charge of making the product, setting up shop, serving it, and collecting the money.”
The students set up a lemonade stand, painted peoples’ faces, and made cake pops, bracelets, and buttons. They even went around their local town square and sold their products to several businesses.
“We teachers really took a back seat in this whole process and let the students take the lead,” Durst said.
The community and parents were incredibly supportive. “Community members thought it was a fantastic way for our students to tie what they were learning in the classroom to real-world problems.”
Mrs. Durst and Mrs. Lee’s classes raised just over $1,000 for survivors of Hurricanes Helene and Milton, which they donated to Convoy of Hope. Because of their kindness, generosity, and hard work, more people received relief supplies they desperately needed.
One child said, “It makes me feel awesome and proud to be able to help kids just like us get the things that they need.”
“I am really proud of the third graders at RISE Elementary,” Durst said. “They worked really hard on something that didn’t benefit them at all and still learned reading, writing, and math. They are a group of students who understand the impact that they can have.”
Everyone truly can change the world — just do the next kind thing, like this group of incredibly generous kids who just wanted to help other kids.
