Flower Hill students thank the community for donating coins to its charitable drive.
Flower Hill students thank the community for donating coins to its charitable drive.

Flower Hill Raises Funds to Support Clean Oceans

May 5, 2023

Flower Hill Primary School third graders recently led a school-wide service project titled Kind Coins for Our Earth. The initiative was sponsored by Kids for Peace, which organizes the annual Great Kindness Challenge that Flower Hill has participated in for several years.

This year, Kids for Peace connected with Wildcoast, an organization consisting of coastal and marine ecosystems conservancy experts with a focus on healing planet Earth. Its goal is to raise $50,000 to support an ocean cleanup. The campaign will help advance the ultimate goal of ending the ocean plastic crisis.

Flower Hill joined with schools around the world to collect coins from February to April to aid the ocean clean-up project. The service opportunity was combined with a social-emotional learning classroom component that provided for teaching students that working toward a common good, as well as thinking about the future, brings a sense of satisfaction.

Over the past three months, Flower Hill collected about $1,000 to donate to the project. “A huge thank you to Flower Hill families and staff for their generosity and support,” Principal Cindy Siegel said.

This marked the second year that Flower Hill has participated in the Kind Coins project.

Last year, the school also raised $1,000 to help a school in Peru purchase laptops for their students whose education was negatively impacted by the pandemic.

Flower Hill teacher Glenn Edwards’ class, along with many other classrooms around the world, successfully funded the project. The school in Peru that received the worldwide donations shared photos and a video of their students last summer receiving their new computers. This success story propelled the Kind Coins collection this year.

Flower Hill students and staff have an ongoing focus on being safe, respectful, responsible and kind. “Their participation in the Kind Coins campaign once again shows that Flower Hill Foxes are not only affecting change in their school, but in the world,” Ms. Siegel said.