MINNEAPOLIS – A handful of students at Franklin Middle School in north Minneapolis turned an after-school program into a charity project for victims still suffering in Puerto Rico.
After seeing the devastation still plaguing the people of Puerto Rico two months after Hurricane Maria, students in the Future Boys and Girls leadership program decided to take action.
“If we were in trouble, they would come and help us,” said Trammela Williams, a sixth-grader at Franklin.
“I’m trying to set an example for everybody, because usually people don’t support people like that,” said eight-grader Devon Davis.
The project is called “I Helped My Neighbor.” Students brainstormed what they could buy and how they could help.
Using a school stipend, donations, and funds raised from selling bracelets, the students purchased about a dozen backpacks and stuffed them with dry goods and supplies.
They also wrote letters sending thoughts and love to the strangers who would receive their gifts.
“For students to take ownership and really care about the people of Puerto Rico and to take action is really the difference,” said Michael Bratsch, a teacher at Franklin and founder of the Future Boys and Girls program.
On Thursday, at a school assembly, the students presented their gifts and donated money to State Senator Melisa Franzen, DFL-Edina, who is from Puerto-Rico and whose parents remain on the island without power.
“It moves me so profoundly that we are doing this all the way in Minnesota,” said Franzen. “If everybody had that same perspective, we’d be in a different world.”
The supplies and money will join other donations put together by a coalition of Minnesotans with ties to Puerto Rico, according to Franzen.
It will be the third shipment of supplies donated to Puerto Rico from the Twin Cities.