On Dec. 3, the 260 members of National Honor Society (NHS) at Vista had a charity-a-thon. Within this charity-a-thon, members were able to give to three separate charities, The Denver Inner City Parish, the Santa Elves Campaign and Roses Of Charity.
For this charity-a-thon, their ultimate goal was to raise enough money for an orphanage in Zimbabwe to be able to buy a van to transport kids who live there to school.
On the night of the charity-a-thon, NHS members collected over 200 pairs of new shoes for Santa Elves Campaign. They also made blankets, and crafts, as well as collected food, clothes and gifts for the Denver Inner City Parish.
“It took a U-Haul and another four wheel drive to get all of the stuff out of here,” NHS club sponsor Heidi Schuster said.
The money for the van came from pledges given by friends and family members.
“We had people pledge dollars per hour and then we worked doing other charity work (making the blankets and crafts), and then the kids collected the pledges,”
These pledges ultimately amounted to $5,291.00 “[This money] is going to make a big difference in a lot of the little kid’s lives,” said Dawna Dejiacomo, a representative for Roses Of Charity.
Roses of Charity had just built a second orphanage for their kids in Zimbabwe in a more rural and nice area; so the kids would have more space. The issue was they were about a 20 minute drive from the nicer schools.
“We want the kids to go to school in the more urban area, but live in the more rural area where there is a nicer quality of life,” Dejiacomo said.
In years past, NHS also helped to raise money for Roses of Charity when they were building a new house. They helped them to get some new appliances for the house.
“We didn’t have enough money to put a refrigerator in there, so [NHS] helped with the new orphanage.” Dejiacomo said.
“When you have 200 or more kids working for three hours straight, it’s amazing what gets done,” Schuster said. NHS does not yet know exactly what they will do for their big spring project, but they have a couple ideas; anything they do will have a huge impact.
