Hoover-Wood students collect $900 to help schools in Pakistan, Afghanistan
Students at Hoover-Wood Elementary School in Batavia gave a hefty donation to help educate other kids, in more ways than one.
Their three-week "Pennies for Peace" campaign collected $911.26 by June 4 (and more was rolling in early last week). At 2.5 grams per penny, that's about 500 pounds of coins - plus some paper bills - Spanish teacher James Rickert delivered to the bank.
The money goes to the Central Asia Institute, which supports schools, especially for girls, in remote regions of northern Pakistan and Afghanistan.
"We teachers decided instead of giving gifts to us at the end of the year," the children could donate to the campaign, Rickert said. One penny will buy one pencil for a child. "The kids were very enthused about it."
"It was well over what I thought it would be in such a short time," he said. Two students, twin girls, collected $60' worth from their neighbors over the Memorial Day weekend.
For more information about the program, visit penniesforpeace.org.
Lock it up: There's nothing like collecting police reports to make me a little paranoid about my possessions.
Especially when I bought my precious cordless electric lawn mower two years ago. Suddenly, every report about tools stolen out of an open garage or unattended mowers taken off driveways while the owners were inside taking a soda break jumped out at me.
So if I'm not actually using the mower, it's behind the safety of my closed garage door.
North Aurora police wish more residents and visitors would do the same. And, while they are at it, lock their car doors.
They recently issued a Nixle bulletin about thefts in late May. In a two-week period, burglaries to unlocked vehicles accounted for 86 percent of all vehicle burglaries.
And even if you lock your doors, keep your GPS device, laptop computer, wireless Internet card, camera and wallet hidden, or better yet, take them with you. Those stolen recently were in plain view, police say.
As for those garage doors: North Aurora police report finding about 20 open doors each night in the summer. Making it easy for thieves to get to your bicycles, tools, yard equipment, and sometimes, even your house.
You can see the full Nixle message at local.nixle.com/alert/2410315.
Speaking of N. Aurora police: On June 6, the department was asked to assist Streator police, due to a tornado that struck, via the Illinois Law Enforcement Alarm System. Officer Brad Brown provided traffic control for 12 hours.
"We're happy that we could assist in some small way," said Lt. Scott Buziecki, in a prepared statement.
Fundraising update: Beautiful weather and over 1500 participants, plus More than 1,500 people turned out May 15 to raise $240,000 for LivingWell Cancer Resource Center at its fifth annual Bridge Walk at Fabyan Forest Preserve in Geneva.
Seven of the 129 teams broke LivingWell's five-year team fundraising records, with the record being $16,302 raised by "Kathy's Circle," led by Glenn Harks in memory of his late wife.
Seen at the scene of a fire call on Bird Lane in Batavia: A little boy who, judging by what he was wearing, may someday be one of the guys manning the fire hoses.
When firefighters showed up to put out a fire in a house across the street, the preschooler put on his Halloween-style firefighting costume, and watched, enthralled by the big trucks and all the activity.