D47 Students' Efforts To Help Families In Ukraine

CRYSTAL LAKE, IL —When Russia invaded Ukraine in early March, Bernotas social studies teacher Jonelle Geib explained the situation to students in her 7th grade social studies classes.

“I let them know what was happening and they were really interested,” Geib said. “We talked about what a refugee is and how many refugees would be fleeing their country as a result of the war. The students were really impacted by the thought of having to leave their homes with nothing in order to simply stay alive.”

Geib asked her students if they would be interested in helping the families of Ukraine by starting a donation drive and one of her classes, in particular, enthusiastically embraced this idea, according to a news release from District 47. The students began making signs to promote the drive and hung them around the school to encourage their classmates to donate.

After learning about the drive, Bernotas 8th grader Erin Johnson created a flier to expand the drive to the community.

She was able to get the Crystal Lake Mariano's to donate grocery bags and attached the flier to the bags before distributing them to homes in her neighborhood. Her efforts alone raised many for hygiene supplies, such as toothbrushes, toothpaste, first aid supplies and diapers.

The 7th grade social studies class set a goal to collect 1,000 items but ended up collecting 1,800 items, including toothbrushes, toothpaste, baby formula and diapers.

“I saw the sadness of the people in Ukraine on the news and all over my social media,” Johnson said. “Their lives were being destroyed, and they were hurting because they had no shelter. I knew I needed to help. One person does not have the ability to change the world, but I know that even if I was able to help one person, I made this world a little bit better.”

Geib searched out places that would accept and transport the donated items to Ukraine and found a partner in Lifetime Fitness in Algonquin, which was conducting a drive of their own, according to a news release.

In addition to the donation drive at Bernotas, D47 middle schools started an all-school project to create awareness of the situation in Ukraine. Students and staff were invited to create peace cranes.

The Peace Crane Project invites people all over the world to fold paper cranes, origami-style, and write messages of peace on their wings to exchange with others in different parts of the world. As students and staff create their peace cranes, they are being hung in the school hallways.

The peace crane project was initiated by Kate Tamms, library information specialist at Hannah Beardsley Middle School. Tamms plans to send the peace cranes to the Children's Peace Monument in Hiroshima, Japan if the district reaches a quantity of 1,000 since the organization accepts cranes in bundles of 1,000 from all over the world.