Tag Archives: Moreland

Supporting Kindness & Local Art

A local elementary school is doing an incredible project and I hope you’ll support it with me.

What are they doing: Instead of selling candy bars, popcorn, or whatever you don’t need, they’re doing a kindness fundraiser. The kids at Moreland Arts and Health Sciences Magnet School in West St. Paul do acts of kindness and ask for your support. They’re doing all kinds of stuff, including writing notes, decorating grocery bags, making toys for a local animal shelter, a cereal box drive for a local food shelf, and much more.

Moreland kids are spreading kindness across the community.

“Small acts of kindness can mean big things for other people.”

-Moreland Principal Mark Quinn

What’s the goal: One of their goals is to raise money for a giant mural across the backside of their building. It’s the perfect fit for an arts magnet school, especially in a first-ring suburb that’s lacking public art.

I love imaging what the mural could look like:

Learn more: I wrote about this fundraiser last year and I covered it again this year. It’s just a feel-good story.

How to Donate

You can donate now to support this effort. That goes straight to the school’s main fundraising page.

You can also donate to individual kids, who create their own fundraising page to share with their family and friends. I like this approach because it directly encourages the kids who are engaged and working hard to support this effort. It’s up to families to share those links, so they’re harder to find, but this Facebook thread has a bunch.

Donate now: The fundraiser was originally scheduled to run through March 3, but one of our snowstorms messed things up a bit so they’ve extended it through March 5 to give kids a couple more days.

Give to the Kids

A while back I remember a kid coming to the door selling something. I don’t remember what they were selling, but I think they were on the girl’s hockey team at the local high school. Whether in a bad mood or feeling cheap, I turned the kid away without buying anything.

Almost immediately, I regretted it. That student had a lot of guts to go door to door, and their team clearly needed the help if this student was putting forth that much effort.

And I let them down.

Here’s a general tip for being a nice human: When kids ask for money, you should try to help.

So when I heard about the local elementary school doing away with door-to-door fundraisers and instead doing community service projects, I wanted to help. Students are doing acts of kindness in the community and asking for support. I wrote a story about Moreland’s Raise Craze fundraiser and then we did another story on their first kindness event.

Continue reading Give to the Kids