Schoolkids to gift to charities, not teachers
NORTH CORK SCHOOL IN BIG-HEARTED CHRISTMAS GESTURE FOR CHARITIES
THE parents of pupils at Dromahane NS will not be buying Christmas presents for teachers this year - instead, they are making donations to help shine some light into the lives of homeless people over the festive season.
Thanks to a novel initiative, pupils have been bringing in items for distribution to Cork charities, with school principal Denis Murray saying the idea was to impress upon the children just how fortunate they are.
“Our children will get plenty for Christmas. It is important at a time like this to think of homeless people and do what we can for them. That’s probably more important to the children than English, Irish and Maths,” he said.
IT’S that time of the year when parents are faced with the problem of what ‘ thank you’ Christmas present to buy to buy for their children’s teachers.
The Parents’ Association at one North Cork school have come up with a novel solution – don’t buy them any presents at all and instead make donations of food and clothing to charity.
Speaking to Patricia Messenger on her C103 Cork Today Show Dromahane NS principal Denis Murray said the idea was to give pupils at the school an idea of how fortunate they are compared to others.
He explained that collection boxes have been set up in each of the nine classrooms at the school. Four of these are for non-perishable food donations for the Cork Homeless and Support Group, with another four for clothes donated to the Simon Community.
“One of our parents has a connection with Glanmire Community College, whose TY class work with the local Active Retirement Group who knit clothes for the homeless. With this in mind, the remaining box in sixth class is for wool donations. Hopefully, some of the pupils who knit might also get involved in that,” said Mr Murray.
He said pupils had fully bought into the idea and within just a week of the boxes being put in place some were already full.
Patricia said it was obvious from the response that the school had been talking to the children and making them aware of the homeless issue, pointing out that it was something they would not really themselves witness at first hand in a village like Dromahane.
“Our children will get plenty for Christmas. While the whole thing about giving and receiving presents from family is important, we are trying to impress upon them how fortunate they are,” said Mr Murray.
“It is important that at a time like Christmas to think of those people and do what we can for them. That’s probably more important to the children than English, Irish and Maths.”
Mr Murray said that while teachers very much appreciate the idea of receiving presents from pupils, they will never expect to get a gift and the school will regularly send out messages to parents saying there was no need to.
“But, people are very good that way. They appreciate the work that is being done here and will still do it. This initiative gives another focus. We even had a speaker from the Simon Community come into the school to talk to the children about where their donations would go and the good they will be doing,” he said.
Mr Murray said that in the spirit of the initiative the Parents Association, who normally make a presentation to staff, would instead be making donations to the children’s unit at the CUH.
“We are trying to cover as many bases as we can. All of the teachers are happy to pass their presents on. This is a much better initiative and takes the pressure off parents in deciding what present to give a teacher,” he said.
Patricia said she hoped other schools would follow their example.