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Students raise $2,500 with Spaghetti Dinner to benefit the Measles Initiative
Bethany O’Neill, Special to RedCross.org
Wednesday, October 18, 2006 — What do a spaghetti dinner for 300 people and young children in Africa have in common? Thirty high school seniors at C.W. Baker High School in Baldwinsville, New York help make the connection. The students completed 10 hours of required community service by hosting a spaghetti dinner at their school cafeteria. The purpose of the dinner was to raise awareness of the millions of children world-wide who are at risk of contracting measles and to raise funds for the Measles Initiative.
The $1 paper dolls represent a child being vaccinated in Africa.
(Photo Credit: American Red Cross) |
The Measles Initiative, launched in 2001, is a partnership committed to reducing measles deaths globally, with the goal of cutting measles deaths by 90 percent by 2010 compared to 2000. During its first five years (2001-2005), the Initiative supported the vaccination of more than 217 million children in Africa, saving 1.2 million lives. Through these efforts, measles cases and deaths have dropped by 48 percent worldwide and by 60 percent in Africa, where measles deaths and disability are highest. Building on its success in Africa, the Initiative has expanded into Asia. The Initiative increasingly provides additional life-saving health interventions in its campaigns, including vitamin A, de-worming medicine and insecticide-treated nets for malaria prevention. Leading these efforts are the American Red Cross, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, United Nations Foundation, UNICEF and World Health Organization.
Teachers Rebecca Glatter and Gail Goff felt their students needed to be educated on social issues and knew the Measles Initiative would be a worthy cause to support. The students participating in the fund-raising event eagerly began to collect donations from classmates and the community to help support the Initiative.
The students knew that they needed to raise awareness of the issue and then the event. The participating students started by selling $1 paper dolls and using the dolls to fill in an outline of Africa in the school's front window. Each paper doll represented the $1 it takes to vaccinate a child against measles. Students also created flyers that were posted in the cafeteria, created morning audio announcements, and sold tickets to the spaghetti dinner during their lunch period.
These were the students that helped make the event possible. (Photo Credit: American Red Cross)
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“Everyone who participated in this task felt a great sense of accomplishment and gained a new outlook on how precious life truly is,” student Tracey Martin explained.
Students and faculty started serving the spaghetti dinner at 4:30 p.m. and did not stop serving until 7 p.m. At the end of the event, $2,500 was raised and donated to the Measles Initiative. Matt Duffy, a donor and volunteer emphasized that “volunteering is the most effective and simplest ways to help the world we live in become stronger and better.” What started out as a way for the students to earn 10 hours of required credit resulted in a deeper satisfaction and understanding of an international social issue. With the events' success, more than 2,000 children will be vaccinated against measles.
For more information or to make a donation, visit www.measlesinitiative.org.
As part of the world's largest humanitarian network, the American Red Cross alleviates the suffering of victims of war, disaster and other international crises, and works with other Red Cross and Red Crescent societies to improve chronic, life-threatening conditions in developing nations. We reconnect families separated by emergencies and educate the American public about international humanitarian law. This assistance is made possible through the generosity of the American public.
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