News
Giving and receiving the Christmas spirit
Scott Wagar
12/20/2011
It was Christmas all around town this week when Lori Erickson’s second grade class raised money to purchase mittens and hats for local children in the area, and found the Christmas spirit for themselves.
Each holiday season, Erickson holds a fundraiser with her second grade class to raise money for Bottineau’s CheerBox organization, which grants Christmas gifts to those who are less fortunate in the local area.
“Each day during the month of December, I sell candy canes in the morning to the students in my class for five cents each,” Erickson said. “The money raised is used to buy children’s mittens and hats for the local CheerBoxes and the kids learn a lot about giving to others and the Christmas spirit.
“They also practice math by letting me know how much they owe, how much change they get in return, and then to count all of our money on the final day,” Erickson added. “The students are allowed to purchase a maximum of five candy canes each day. We also had four families make a monetary donation to help us. The candy cane sales, without donations, were $45.75.”
On Friday morning, Erickson and her students made a journey into the town’s business section to purchase their mittens and hats where they discovered more than clothing. They also discovered the Christmas spirit being granted to them through local business people.
“We walked to North Star Credit Union and put our money in the change counter and exchanged it for bills where we discovered we were only 15 cents off in our calculating,” Erickson said. “We then proceeded to The Golden Rule where we were greeted by more
exciting news! The Golden Rule gave us a 25 percent discount on our purchases and donated several pairs of mittens and hats. The Christmas spirit continued as Allison McWhinney, an employee of The Golden Rule, and her husband matched our money. We walked out with three bags stuffed with children’s hats and mittens.”
The mittens and hats will now be handed over to the CheerBox organization, which will be handing out its Christmas gifts from the community members at the end of this week.
During this season of “Peace on Earth, Good Will to Men” a number of local residents will be receiving gifts through the simplicity of kindhearted people and candy canes.