Benson students spend school year donating goods, money to charity

Teachers at Benson Primary School in Itasca know they can lecture students about caring and responsibility every day, but only examples will really show them the true meaning of the words.

The school, which teaches about 300 students in preschool through second grade, participates in the Character Counts! program that aims to instill moral values in children. To make those ideas come to life, Benson teachers conduct service projects throughout the school year, raising thousands of dollars in cash and item donations. Last week, Benson students and teachers celebrated their work with an assembly and final fundraiser for the Itasca Food Pantry.

"This is the first time these children are in school, so we are defining these words for them," said Pam Mitchell, a second-grade teacher who runs Character Counts! at Benson. "They hear things like 'you need to be respectful' but we are teaching them what that means. The other schools then take it further as their understanding develops."

During the 2008-09 school year, students collected more than $3,000 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society; sent more than seven boxes of toys to local agencies during the holidays; collected used sneakers for recycling; gathered more than 20 pounds of pop tabs to donate to the Ronald McDonald House; and raised almost $1,000 through a poetry slam and art auction to be donated to local zoos and wildlife agencies for endangered animals.

Mitchell said the idea is to create constant service projects so that doing good becomes a regular habit for the children.

For their final fundraiser last week, students collected 13 boxes of food and toiletries to donate to the Itasca Food Pantry. Teachers and staff also lead by example, as they donated more than 400 books this year for pantry users and raised money for the pantry through the Green for Jeans program - each teacher donated $5 in exchange for wearing jeans to school.

"This was a culminating activity to celebrate their accomplishments," Mitchell said. "We want to really model for the kids to take care of others, because that's what having good character is. It's kind of neat at the end of the year, we look at all the things we've done and they probably don't realized we have helped a lot - just a bunch of little kids in little Itasca."