On August 25, Hurricane Harvey made landfall on the city of Houston, Texas as a category 4 hurricane. Harvey left 10,000 square miles flooded after 50 inches of rain fell in less than 4 days. There have been 46 confirmed deaths and 30,000 to 40,000 homes destroyed. This destruction of dwellings resulted in at least 35,000 people in shelters. The estimated costs in damages is going to be 150 billion dollars over the next 8 years, making this one of the worst natural disasters in America’s history.
With so many people needing basic necessities, we are left with the question of what we as a school and as a community can do to help. This leads us to consider what we can do to support the people of Houston. Ideas to raise funds could include car washes, candy bar sales, bake potato feeds, community yard sales, bake sales, mud run, and charity sports events. To help our fellow Americans during these desperate times, our school could partner with the many churches in our small community to get truck loads of goods and even organize busloads of volunteers to go down to take aid to Houston.
I would like to kick off these efforts as a school to collect bottled water, canned goods, toiletries, diapers, wipes, baby bottles, binkies, baby toys, car seats, playpens, stuffed animals, blankets, pillows, clothes, towels, books, toys, old phones, phone chargers, paper plates, paper cups, crayons, coloring books, markers, and anything else you can think of that would make life easier for men, women and their children who has lost everything and are living in shelters.We also need to think about the animals and they are going to need food and bowls, leashes, collars, pet taxies, dog crates, pet toys, pet brushes, pet treats, animal shampoo, and even beds to make them more comfortable. We would need volunteers such as people who have access to large trucks who would be willing to drive the items down with the donations to aid the people of Texas.
I know this sounds like a huge task but we are Riverton both as a school and as a community and I fully believe that if we dedicate ourselves to this mission that we can be one of the biggest supporters of Houston and give a name to our school. I challenge you as each and every student in this school to encourage your family and your churches to get involved to take on this mission wholeheartedly! :ets see how many donations we can fill our commons area with and how much money we can raise. I want to see our commons area so full that you can’t walk through it. #helpHouston #weareRiverton #makeHoustonshineagain #thinkoutsidethebox
