Eighth-graders raise
tsunami aid

Students at Punahou will donate
$17,000 to the local Red Cross

The pictures of the devastation from the Indian Ocean tsunamis were all 96 eighth-graders at Punahou School needed to see. They then rallied behind a class project and will raise at least $17,000 for the American Red Cross relief efforts.

Teacher Paris Priore-Kim said the students wanted to "make an impact on the real world. They don't think of this as work."

The students have ordered 10,000 blue silicone wristbands, embedded with the words "Tsunami Relief" or "Wave of Aid," which they plan to sell for $2 on their campus and at schools throughout the state, according to student Evan Weber.

To raise a maximum amount, Punahou's "Team Z" social studies students decided to invite other schools to take part in the fund-raiser by purchasing wristbands in bulk quantities at 55 cents apiece, Weber said.

The initial 10,000 wristbands they ordered have already been reserved by Punahou, Iolani and Moanalua schools. The students plan to order more as long as there is a demand, Priore-Kim said.

Two pictures had the biggest impact on Weber, his classmate Elise Wolff and the rest of the students, they said. Wolff said the first showed "lots of people just standing and watching" the huge wave approaching them. The second showed "people running away and having no where to go. You could see their faces; they were very scared," she said.

The entire project has been an inspiring example of "social entrepreneurship at its best," Priore-Kim said. "Most kids in private school don't usually take risks (because) they want to know they're going to succeed. But they went out on a huge limb in spite of not knowing if they could raise the seed money, whether they could get other schools involved ... whether we were going to lose money.

"But they wanted to do it anyway because they knew it was the right thing to do. They were hopeful and decided to go for it."

Priore-Kim then put the students into the shoes of people surviving the tsunami. How would they feel without basic needs such as food, clothing and water? After that the students felt an enormous sense of responsibility, she said. It led them to giving far more than the initial $2 per person first agreed upon to collect the $2,000 deposit for the first wristband order, she said.

Weber said, "We actually care about the people and want to get this done so people can be as fortunate as we are, (having such things as) fresh water and clothes," he said.