4th-grader digs deep for UNICEF
He raised school-high $44 to help children
Elias Al Salhy is learning that generosity is its own reward.
“I feel good about it because I helped kids,” he told me.
Elias, an 11-year-old fourth-grader, really ran with his school’s Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF campaign this fall. His orange collection boxes contained $44.87, which is the largest amount raised by any student at Victory K-8 and Milwaukee Italian Immersion School.
The children worldwide helped by UNICEF to have clean drinking water, adequate food and other necessities can feel so far away. But not to Elias. His family comes from Iraq, and he was born in Egypt before the family moved on to Milwaukee.
I remember Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF, or United Nations Children’s Fund, from when I was a kid, but I didn’t think it was around anymore. No child has come to my door with this appeal in a long time.
But it’s very much alive at Elias’ MPS school, where I’m told the students represent more than 20 countries. They have their own United Nations of sorts right there at 2222 W. Henry Ave. on the city’s south side.
Elias did not go door-to-door for donations. He said he contributed money he’s been saving up for doing chores at home, where he lives with his mother,
father, sister and brother. This is money he could have spent on things he wanted for himself.
He returned to school with the first box and was excited to give it to Annette Robertson, a teacher who coordinates the campaign.
“He came bounding into my room while I was teaching and said, ‘Ms. Robertson, here’s my box!’ It was full and heavy,” she said. Elias then asked for another box to fill.
Cathy Laurenzi is Elias’ classroom teacher. She calls him a good kid with a really big heart.
“We talked about the United Nations and about being able to collect money for UNICEF. I showed the class a few videos about how some of the kids in Haiti were eating essentially like dirt cookies because they were so impoverished,” she said.
The children were inspired to help, though no one more than Elias.
“If you don’t want to call me Elias, you can call me the UNICEF kid,” he told me as we walked the hallway of his school.
He mentioned the videos he had seen, especially one scene showing people walking for miles to fetch barely passable water. He does not take the comforts of America for granted.
Elias plans to be a kid helping kids again next year. “I think I’ll do the same thing, but more.”
Contact Jim Stingl at (414) 224-2017 or jstingl@jrn.com. Connect with my public page at Facebook.com/Journalist.Jim.Stingl