Students at Irving Middle School not only opened their classrooms to a few students from New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina, they banded together and opened their pockets as well.
Three families that took refuge from the storm in Northern Virginia received over $6,000, raised through lunchtime donations and a school dance organized by the Student Council Association.
"A group of teachers met at the start of the year to brainstorm ways to raise money for Katrina victims," said Meg Dailer, the SCA advisor at Irving and a math teacher.
After coming up with the idea to collect donations during each of the four lunch sessions, the students turned it into a competition, she said.
At first, every time a donation was made, a teacher would announce it on the school's loudspeaker system, said Amber Woody, eighth grade vice president. "That was really cool, if you like being the spotlight."
Soon the announcements were only made for students who brought in $5 donations, then $10 donations. In order to keep donations coming in and make things more fun for the students, some teachers took matters into their own hands.
"Some days, teachers would sing for donations," said Ryann Hart, the eighth grade Student Council secretary. "If students brought in $20 to donate, a teacher would sing or dance."
Tony Salgado, a physical education teacher, said the donations were starting to slow down and he wanted to try to bring more money in for the victims, so he offered to dance for donations.
"We turned it into a competition between the four lunches," he said. "I told the kids in D lunch that I would dance for anyone that brought in $20, and the other lunches took the idea and ran with it."
One lunch period even had a talent show featuring students and teachers alike, he said.
SOME CLASSES began to contribute to the effort to raise money.
During Parent-Teacher night, students in the Teen Living class made brownies and lemonade to sell, said eighth grade president Tracey Johnson.
The fall dance, which the SCA sponsored, was the best-attended dance Dailer said she's ever seen.
"When you signed up to come to the dance, you could give extra if you wanted," said Hart. Tickets were originally $5 per student, but the SCA raised over $3,000 at the dance.
"Giving money to help people makes me feel better," said Woody. "Seeing all the pictures on the news made me really sad. The hurricane effected everyone."
Megan Dumond, the seventh-grade secretary, said it's important to help people because "if something happened here, I would hope those people would help us."
Irving students have various fund-raisers and drives throughout the year, for anything from canned food to bicycles, said eighth-grade president Tracey Johnson.
"We've never had a turnout like this before for other fund-raisers," added Katie Kinzel, eighth-grade historian.
"I donated two weeks' allowance to the families," said seventh grade historian Angela Garvino. "Over the summer, my family and I were in New Orleans and we wanted to help the people we met there. We felt really bad about what happened to them."