Lydia White and Kyle Richie gave up their lunch hour to man the donation box and display at the 'Friends for Haiti' table at Hants East Rural High School Cafeteria. (Cano photo)

MILFORD STATION: Throw the stereotype of the apathetic teenager out the window. In just a few days since a massive earthquake struck the small country of Haiti, three classes from Hants East Rural High School have brainstormed and pooled their resources to help.

Students in Nancy Rose’s Grade 9 family studies class, Debbie Matheson’s Grade 10 family studies and Grade 11 yoga classes are becoming friends of Haiti, and encouraging fellow students to do the same. Beginning Jan. 15, teachers and students spent their lunch hours in the school cafeteria, selling friendship bracelets they made and taking donations for their ‘friends for Haiti’ funding drive.

It was just a strange coincidence that the day before they heard of the earthquake, Rose’s Grade 9 class was doing an activity related to disaster relief. It was part of the ‘Real Game’, and the segment was called, ‘There’s been an emergency.’ In the game, students took on different roles and professions in society, coming up with ways to use their skills to help in an emergency situation. Coincidentally, their mock emergency situation was an earthquake.

After working through the exercise with students, Rose heard about the devastating quake in Haiti that night. The next day in school, the Real Game, took on real significance.

“I came in the next day and said to the class, ‘did you hear of the real earthquake on the news?’ They all said ‘what can we do to help out?’ So between us all, we came up with the idea of ‘friends for Haiti’. The students made all the bracelets, and Ms. Matheson and I donated prizes,” said Rose.

On Jan. 15, Grade 9 students Lydia White and Kyle Richie gave up their lunch hour to work the display table surrounded by posters of facts about Haiti. The table was covered with bracelets they made with fellow students; many were made with the colours of the Haitian flag. Fellow students milled about reading posters, browsing bracelets and other trinkets available for donation, and forking over dollars for the good cause. For Kyle Richie, and Lydia White, they said the experience was an eye opener.

“Our class also made all of these posters and put them around the school. We were all told to find information about Haiti, and we found out their average salary is about $400, and over 50,000 people have died,” said Richie.

“We hope that any money we give them will really help. The money we could all raise could be one person’s salary for the year,” said Richie.

Both students express that although the catastrophe is so far away, the effects are worldwide, and closer than expected.

“Even people I’ve been talking to around the school, there’s been three or four people whose dads or uncles are RCMP or are peacekeeping and going to help out,” said Richie.

“It’s important to help because you never know when it’s going to happen here. You never know when something like that could actually affect you or someone close to you,” said White.

Richie, admitting he didn’t know much about the country before the disaster, is now spreading the word other students about what’s happened, and becoming more informed on his own.

“We’re all part of the same world so if we had an earthquake here, we would hope that other places that would want to help us out if we needed it, which they really do need it. If no one was helping them right now, it would just be chaos,” said Richie.

The first day at their friendship bracelet and display stand during junior lunch, the students raised $75. At the beginning of this week, they sold bracelets and accepted donations during both junior and senior lunches. Several other classes around the school have decided to contribute by starting their own donation jars as well.

“I think it’s awesome and I was really impressed to see how much the students wanted to help. It wasn’t like half the class was interested and other half wasn’t. Everyone wanted to help. Everyone seemed to have a good social conscience which is really nice to see at this age,” said Rose.

acano@enfieldweeklypress.com