Kid's Stuff Preschool let kids learn about disasters and helping others like themselves.
By MICHELE MILLER, Times Staff Writer
Published September 20, 2005
LUTZ - Any teacher or parent knows you can make a learning experience out of anything, even the bad stuff.
But it was the children enrolled in the after-school program at at Kids' Stuff preschool who came up with their own way of helping the kids who had been displaced by Hurricane Katrina.
First, they gathered together and talked about what it would be like if Katrina had happened to them. They talked about how it would feel to have lost everything; how it would feel to live in the confines of a shelter far from your home, your own room and your favorite toys.
After trying to do a little walking in someone else's shoes, they decided to do something.
Someone said, "Why don't we make something for them?" said assistant director Jackie Genovese.
So they did.
What the kids came up with were "Fun boxes" that they would decorate and fill with small items that could provide a little amusement and perhaps some distraction too.
Parents chipped in, providing kid-friendly things; pacifiers, teething biscuits, books, Pick-up Sticks, travel-size LEGOS, paper, colored pencils and card games such as Old Mai d and Go Fish.
The boxes, about 60 in total, were to be sent to Louisiana and Mississippi, courtesy of Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Lutz.
The kindergarteners helped out too by holding a bake sale that raised $500. Half of that came form the sale of treats such as cookies and cupcakes, and a matched amount was contributed by National Distributing Co.
"I think this makes a miserable situation just a little more bearable," Genovese said. "The kids came up with the idea. We just gave them the tools to do it."
