Bainbridge students give up gift exchange to make donations

First grade students at Bainbridge Elementary decided to make contributions to the Putnam County Humane Shelter instead of having a gift exchange. They posed here with some of their donations.

BAINBRIDGE -- First grade students in Nana Rising's class at Bainbridge Elementary gave up having a Christmas gift exchange, and instead donated money and items to the Putnam County Humane Shelter.

"The students were very excited as they began to see the collections of coins accumulate on my desk. We were even more surprised when we counted all of the money we had. There was $109.69," said Rising

Along with the money, there were also many donations of pet food, treats, biscuits and other goodies.

"And, not one child seemed upset about not having a gift exchange," added Rising.

Last year, all five first grade classes took part in the school's PTO program "Pay It Forward." Each class was given $100 in seed money by the PTO. The classes chose their charity to be the Humane Shelter. They made and sold human puppy chow for $1 a bag.

"We hope to do this again later this year but knew that they were in need right now," said Rising.

During the students visit last year, Rising told the Shelter representatives that the first grades were adopting the Humane Shelter as their project for the next couple of years.

"So, you can expect to see or hear from us a couple of times of year and at Christmas," she declared.

Obviously, she and her students have kept that promise.

"Hopefully all the students learned a good lesson about giving," she added.

To make a contribution to the Shelter contact: The Humane Society of Putnam County at 765-653-5739 or go online to www.hspcanimals.org.