March 28, 2024
BANGOR DAILY NEWS (BANGOR, MAINE

Owls Head pupils pool pennies for Kosovo kids

OWLS HEAD — The pupils at Owls Head Central School saved their pennies to help the children in Kosovo, raising $425 in one week.

A check was presented to Virginia Reed of the American Red Cross. It will be used for medicine and clothing, fifth-grade teacher Thomas Molloy said Friday.

The money will go to the International Committee for the Red Cross.

“We’ve seen the plight of kids in Kosovo,” Molloy said, praising the efforts of the 93 pupils in third through fifth grades. “Each day the kids put money in a jar.”

“We didn’t realize we were going to raise $425 in one week,” he said.

The pupils had been studying about the thousands of ethnic Albanians being forced from their homes by reading Time for Kids, a current events weekly for students, and articles in the Bangor Daily News, Molloy said.

Adrien Thompson, a fourth-grader at the school, collected cans and bottles to make her contribution to the fund.

“All I did was give some of my allowance,” fifth-grader Nathaniel Cushman added.

Molloy said parents and teachers chipped in with the pupils “to reach beyond the shores of Owls Head,” and to show “we’re not just isolated down here — we’re aware.”

“I just think what’s going on in Kosovo is ridiculous,” third-grader Andrew Bragg said. “It really shouldn’t be happening.”

At the end of the fund-raising week, there was a drawing for five Beanie Babies, which the pupils knew about from the start. But Molloy said that comments from pupils in the beginning indicated the Beanie Babies were no persuasion.


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