St. Joachim students are serving their community

Jeff Benson

St. Joachim Parish School has 10 grades and 10 ways its students are

helping out their community -- including providing money, food and

supplies for Costa Mesa’s less fortunate.

Each teacher chose a different “service learning project” for the

2004-05 school year.

Claudette Hallisey’s eighth-grade students on Tuesday presented

St. Vincent de Paul Society representative Barbara Benun with a check

for $377, an amount they raised themselves, at the school’s morning

mass.

St. Vincent de Paul, a nonprofit organization designed to help the

nation’s poor, will use the money to provide shelter and Thanksgiving

meals for several Costa Mesa families, Benun said.

“I want you to know how much we appreciate any amount you give,”

Benun said.

“The pennies, nickels and dimes really add up. This money will

probably put a roof over somebody’s head.

“It might not mean much to you, but it gives them hope.”

In the eighth-grade “Helping Hands for the Hungry”

service-learning project, students sold paper hands for a dollar.

The hands will be displayed on a banner in St. Joachim Church

throughout the week.

Eighth-grade student Beatrice Mora, 13, said she and three

classmates made the rounds on campus and asked teachers and students

for donations.

Some donated several dollars at a time and others forked over

their pocket change.

“It makes a difference if the whole school is involved in a

project,” Beatrice said.

“The people here are really generous.”

Teachers in other grades are getting their students involved in

other ways.

The preschoolers plan to raffle off a skateboard so the Children’s

Hospital of Orange County can afford a new laptop.

The second-graders are collecting small “Happy Meal” toys to

donate to young cancer patients.

Two grades are donating to the volunteer clinic Share Our Selves,

which is based in Costa Mesa.

The kindergartners will donate school supplies to the clinic for

its August drive, and the third-graders have collected nearly 600

cans of food throughout the month of November.

* JEFF BENSON covers education and may be reached at (714)

966-4617 or by e-mail at jeff.benson@latimes.com.