Isaac Fox students sell crafts for charity
Melanie McGrath, Amy Kudron and Kailee Remez like to sew together. They used to sew for themselves, just for fun, but now the fourth-graders sell their work to classmates to benefit charities.
Third-, fourth- and fifth-grade students at Isaac Fox Elementary in Lake Zurich play the soprano recorder. There has not always been a market for recorder cases, but now the custom-made holders are a popular item.
McGrath, Kudron and Remez sewed cases for themselves out of fabric remnants, but soon they received requests from friends to make more. They decided to do it for $1 per case.
"We thought it would be fun to have people buy our stuff, but we thought it would be rude to keep the money so we are giving it to local charities," Kudron said.
The three students have raised about $130 for breast cancer and multiple sclerosis research. McGrath said they chose those causes because friends have family members suffering from the diseases.
The students offer a choice of a variety of fabrics and Velcro tops for the cases. Orders are coming in a little faster than they can fill them.
"We stopped taking orders for a while because we have to catch up," Kudron said.
She added they will eventually change the ordering system so they would make the cases ahead of time, and students would take one and leave their payment.
The three students took the idea to their music teacher, Nancy Polancich, who encouraged them to pursue selling the cases for charity.
"I was just very proud of them for being that forward thinking," Polancich said.
She added the three girls show more empathy than she is used to seeing from fourth-grade students.
"We just kind of said, 'If we can sew we might as well help other people,'" McGrath said.