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Handel's Koins for Kids benefits Akron Children's
BOARDMAN
Beware of students whose schools are participating in the fifth annual Handel’s Ice Cream Koins for Kids campaign to benefit Akron Children’s Hospital Mahoning Valley.
If previous years are any example, there will be some innovative — maybe even irritating — projects invented by their fellow students to raise money and awareness for Akron Children’s in Boardman.
For instance, said Jim Brown, chief operating officer for Handel’s Homemade Ice Cream and Yogurt, at Tuesday’s Koins for Kids kickoff luncheon at Akron Children’s, one school’s project was to play a song “that nobody liked” over and over again in the cafeteria.
Students had to pay to meet a financial goal to get the music turned off.
Students from many schools in Columbiana, Mahoning and Trumbull counties participating in Koins for Kids, sponsored by Handel’s, are planning how to raise money at their schools Dec. 2 through Dec. 13.
Taylor Thomas, Paige Ewing and Adam Zimmerman, students at Western Reserve High School in Berlin Center, participating in Koins for Kids for the first time, already have some activities in the works.
For the high school and middle school, they are planning a Spirit Week with dress-up themes. Students will pay $1 to participate in Western Wednesday and a School Spirit Day.
For the kindergarten through fifth-grade students, they plan to pass out cardboard snowmen, provided by Handel’s, which will be hung in the hallways with the students’ names on them for a $1 donation.
The class with the most donations will get a pajama day at school.
The snowmen can then be used as Christmas tree ornaments, said Brown, who initiated Koins for Kids five years ago.
Koins for Kids, done in conjunction with an area firefighters boot drive on the first Saturday in November, raised $100,000 the first four years, including $48,000 in 2012.
As an incentive, the school in each county that raises the most money per student will be treated to an ice-cream social and a DJ and school dance.
But, Brown said, while the money is important and will help kids at Akron Children’s, he said participation is the main goal.
“I don’t know if there is a better lesson we can teach our kids than to help others,” he said.