Kids Saved Their Best For Holidays

More than 70 percent of the 800 students at Spokane’s Shaw Middle School receive free or reduced-price lunches.

Just another 25 low-income students would qualify the North Side school for a special type of federal aid. Yet this so-called needy student body has proven once again that it knows as much about the spirit of giving as any charity-minded group in town.

Shaw’s second annual penny drive ended last week with a balance of $1,625.53, beating last year’s fund-raiser by more than $200.

That’s one mondo load of pennies.

On Tuesday morning, six young ambassadors from the school and their student-body advisers went on an exuberant shopping spree through the toy-crammed aisles of the White Elephant store, 1730 N. Division.

Take note, you pessimists who love to squawk and whine about the sad sunken state of today’s youth.

These middle-schoolers transformed their small change collection into 332 Christmas presents destined for kids who would otherwise have nothing under the tree.

Shaw’s generosity amounts to one of the biggest donations for this season’s U.S. Marine Corps Toys for Tots campaign.

“We had one kid this year who brought her piggy bank to give to the drive,” says Diane Fields, Shaw’s assistant principal. “It was everything she had saved for most of the year.”

Fields tells another touching story. This one is about a particularly energetic student who was one of the leading money raisers during last year’s drive.

Weeks later, Fields learned that two of the boy’s siblings had been on the Toys for Tots list to receive presents.

“We’re so proud that our students want to help others,” adds Fields, “particularly since many of them are from situations where funds are limited.”

Is there a lesson here?

Yes, according to the latest issue of U.S. News and World Report. Average Americans - not the rich or the super-rich - are by far the biggest givers.

Studies show half of all people who donate make less than $50,000 a year. Many givers are among those regular working stiffs, people who struggle to make ends meet. Likewise at Shaw, many of the teachers threw their two cents and a lot more into the penny drive.

Pete Lewis, Shaw’s rightfully proud principal, admits he is continually amazed and humbled by the generosity of the low-income students he supervises. “They’re good kids,” adds Lewis. “I wouldn’t trade ‘em.”

Every Christmas season I get bombarded with requests to publicize this good deed or that charitable act.

Some of these do-gooders strike me as people looking for self-aggrandizement. The Shaw toy buying at the White Elephant was the real deal.

For more than an hour, I watched these students select piles of thoughtful gifts: colored chalk, flash cards, “Star Wars” action figures, Mr. Potato Heads, glow-in-the-dark yo-yos, dolls, stuffed animals, games … No cap guns or rubber knives allowed. This is a public school thing, remember?

“None of the fun stuff,” grouses Tony Zammit, 14.

As a child I often dreamed about being unleashed in a toy store and allowed to go on a buying binge. The only difference is that the charity in my fantasy was “Toys for Doug.” It was almost as rewarding watching these crazy Shaw kids.

“Slinkeeees! Where are the Slinkeeees?” yelled Sue Orovic during her frantic search through the store.

Orovic, by the way, is Shaw’s 38-year-old PE teacher.

“You know,” observed seventh-grader Chris Libby, 13, as he watched Orovic race by, “I think she’s having more fun than we are.”

, DataTimes