January 12, 2007

LeyVa students raise funds to fight global warming

Sixth graders promote energy saving after viewing ‘An Inconvenient Truth’

By Ali Abdollahi
Staff Writer

A sixth grade class at LeyVa Middle School turned their concern over global warming into action by raising funds to purchase energy saving light bulbs for the families of LeyVa students.

Teacher Kristin Murphy's sixth grade class at LeyVa Middle School shows off the “Save Earth’s Future” bracelets they are selling to raise funds to purchase energy saving lightbulbs for every LeyVa family.

The project began after teacher Kristin Murphy showed her students former Vice President Al Gore’s documentary film “An Inconvenient Truth.” Wanting to do their part to fight global warming, Murphy’s students decided to help promote the use of the energy saving light bulbs.

“My students learned that if one house replaces their traditional light bulbs with five energy saving bulbs, it is equivalent to taking one million cars off the freeway for an entire year,” said Murphy. “They ran with this statistic, and realized that if our whole school did that it would be like taking one billion cars off the freeway.”

Determining that many families may not make the effort to purchase energy saving bulbs themselves, the students became determined to provide the bulbs for them. To raise funds, the students began selling wristbands with the words “Save Earth’s Future” printed on them during their lunch period. In the first two days of sales, Murphy’s students raised nearly $500, enough to purchase 500 sets of light bulbs.

Murphy is not surprised that the student body at LeyVa has supported her motivated students. “This group of students have the biggest hearts, and are a true inspiration,” she said. “They inspire me every day to do all that I can to encourage the passion I see inside them.”

The class needs to raise $1,000 to purchase light bulbs for every family at the school, but they project that they will raise $2,000 dollars by the end of January. “Once we are finished with our school, we are going to do the same for every school in our district,” said Murphy.

In order to supply the entire district, the class determined that it needs to raise approximately $18,000. The students have decided to expand the project beyond selling wristbands, and begin seeking donations from the community to reach their objective. Said Murphy, “Although this is a big goal, we know that we can do it, and in the end it will make a huge impact!”

Grade 6 students at LeyVa Middle School display the bracelets they are currently selling to raise funds in hopes of purchasing energy saving lightbulbs for the family of every LeyVa student.