2011-05-03 02:46

Birdville school partnering with Sister Cities for Earthquake Relief Fund

At a full assembly of students at The Academy at West Birdville last week,  5th grader Jacob Cameron and his team consisting of other students,  Juan Bravo, John Burgess, Juan Chariez, Oscar Ibarra and Alan Nunez, presented a check for $381.81 to Fort Worth Sister Cities’ Japanese Earthquake Relief Fund.  Jacob spearheaded an effort to involve his school in raising money to help Japan after seeing reports of the devastation from the devastating earthquake in March. Six hundred sixty (660) elementary students at The Academy were asked to bring coins to school to add to the relief fund established by Sister Cities for a month long campaign.  The funds will be sent to Nagaoka, Japan, Fort Worth’s sister city since 1987, to be used for evacuation centers in Nagaoka, as well as given to the Japanese Red Cross Society. Jacob and his team collected coins every Thursday.  Some students gave up their afternoon snack to donate and some gave up their field trip to Lego Land.  Jacob also single-handedly created a video to motivate his fellow students to help out that can be seen on You Tube and the school’s website. “Sister Cities is proud to have students like Jacob who are reaching out to other parts of the world with acts of kindness. That’s what Sister Cities is all about – we are citizen diplomats, even 5th graders ,” said Winston Fuller, Chair of the Nagaoka committee of Sister Cities. “Fort Worth has had a long relationship with Nagaoka and we are looking forward to celebrating our 25th anniversary next year when we travel there for the Hanabi festival,” said Fuller. Fort Worth Sister Cities has now raised nearly $20,000 for the earthquake relief fund which will be sent to Nagaoka later this month. The damage caused by the earthquake has become increasingly clear and the total number of victims is still unknown. Uncertainty about the final damage still lingers as does the concern over the nuclear danger.