Frances Patton, a Sag Harbor fifth-grader, was at home last month when an alert came through on her mother’s phone: Their former Los Angeles neighborhood was being evacuated due to the wildfires raging through Southern California. “I just thought of all my friends that used to live there, and I thought about what it would be like if we were still there, and how upset I would have been,” said Frances, 11.
“It made it very real to her,” recalled her mother, Jen Patton. “I said, ‘I know it’s really scary, but maybe there’s a way you could do something to help.’ “
The next day at school, Frances and her best friend, Winter Henry, also 11, approached the Sag Harbor Elementary principal, Matt Malone, with the idea of a fund-raiser. Together they decided on a read-a-thon benefiting Children’s Books for Altadena, a GoFundMe campaign raising money to buy books for children who lost their schools and, in many cases, homes to the Eaton Fire.
The girls presented their idea during a schoolwide assembly, inviting each student to choose a book and ask family and friends to pledge a small amount of money for each page they read. They were joined at the podium by the third grader Ione Miller, 8, also originally from Los Angeles, who had suggested they create coloring sheets featuring positive messages for first responders.
Service-learning is an important part of the school’s curriculum, according to Mr. Malone, with an emphasis placed on “child-centered” projects. In this case, he said, the students “were impacted by what they saw was happening with the wildfires and wanted to help. They worked to plan and lead our read-a-thon, which provided such a meaningful way for our students to be directly involved in an action that would give the gift of new books to children in Southern California.”
The fund-raiser, which took place on Jan. 24, was successful beyond all expectations. During an assembly just over a week later, the girls announced to the school that they had collectively raised a grand total of $14,987. “It was just crazy,” Frances said. “That was really fun to announce to the whole school,” Winter added. “There were, like, really great reactions.” They also shared photos of firefighters from Ione’s old neighborhood holding some of the drawings and messages students had sent to them.
The school’s donation will bring Children’s Books for Altadena well above its listed goal of $50,000. Carmela Beyer, who created the campaign, wrote in an Instagram post that she was “floored” by the “creativity and energy of the children who used their love of books to help others.” Using Sag Harbor Elementary’s read-a-thon pledge sheet as a template, she is now inviting other schools looking to organize similar events within their own communities.
“If you really feel strongly about doing something you should go and do it,” said Frances. “Sometimes I think of doing stuff like that, but I never actually go and do it. It felt really good to actually just go and do it.”