The Emporia Gazette

February 12, 2012

• Headlines
• Sports
• Forums
• Weather
• Classifieds

• Help
• Log in
• Home

• E-mail story
• Post a comment
• iPod friendly version

Under the theme of kindness, a World War II story and a 9-11 Remembrance Day speaker have generated boxfuls of gifts for children in Iraq from second grade students at Timmerman Elementary School.

The project started last month during the reading of “Boxes for Katje” by Candace Fleming. It is the story of a young Dutch girl whose hometown was destroyed during World War II. Katje receives a package from an American school girl as part of a goodwill effort to help the people of Europe. The book was inspired by the true experiences of the author’s mother.

“The book tells how one person can make a big difference,” said second-grade teacher Amanda Arndt.

Reading the book coincided with a classroom visit from Arndt’s cousin, Misty DeDonder, a few days after Sept.11. DeDonder was home on leave from the war in Iraq and she talked to the class about some of her experiences.

Arndt’s class learned that the war has left many Iraqi children with nothing, and the U.S. soldiers like to take gifts to the children when they can. They saw many similarities between the Iraq stories and the girl in the book.

“That’s how our project began,” Arndt said. “We decided we would collect anything that a child would want. We sent letters to the other three second-grade classes and asked if they would like to join us.”

At the end of two weeks, the children collected several boxes of school supplies, clothing, shoes, candy, hand sanitizer and toys. Arndt planned to get the items shipped by the end of the week to DeDonder, who will see that the gifts are distributed to the children.