MIDDLEBURY ELEMENTARY SCHOOL STUDENTS CREATE CLAY ANIMALS FOR THE HUNGRY

   Twenty-six fifth-graders from the early morning art classes at Middlebury Elementary School crafted clay animal ornaments to sell as a fundraiser. The students sold the cookie cutter animals and raised nearly $300.00, which was earmarked to purchase animals for less fortunate families worldwide. (Read more below the pictures...)

   “I introduced the students to two books, The Material World and Hungry Planet,” said Middlebury Elementary School art teacher, Mrs. Kathy Miller. “I told them, as artists, we could make something to raise money to help some people have a better life. We decided we could make little clay animals to benefit Heifer International.”

   The students used cookie cutters to cut out 200 animal shapes, then fired and hand-glazed each one.  The students sold the animals at the school and raised $296.  This week, the students voted to purchase a flock of chickens, ducks, and a water buffalo for Heifer International.

   According to the Heifer International website, the families who will receive the animals will build the shelters and plant trees and grasses to keep the animals healthy. Soon, eggs, milk and meat from the animals improve the family’s nutrition. Extra eggs and milk can be sold to improve income, while animal manure fertilizes crops. Bees produce honey, and trees, vegetables, fruit and other crops begin to produce food, fuel and fibers. Water buffalo, oxen and camels provide draft power that makes farming and transportation much easier. Heifer recipients pass one or more of their animal's offspring, training and skills to another family in need.

   “I liked knowing that by doing something really small could do something really big,” said Savannah M., a student at Middlebury Elementary School. “It felt good to raise enough money to get food for a family who needs it in a poorer country.”

   Heifer International is an organization whose mission is to work with communities to end hunger and poverty by donating a source of food rather than through short-term relief.

   “While it was fun making the animals, we learned about how lots of people less fortunate than we are need animals to survive,” said fifth-grader Michelle G.