Despite the rainy weather on April 7, Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart in Bethesda, Maryland hosted an enthusiastic school-wide giving day to benefit the relief efforts for the people of Ukraine being carried out by World Central Kitchen, an organization founded by renowned Spanish Chef José Andrés. According to the group’s website, World Central Kitchen is "first to the frontlines providing meals in response to humanitarian, climate, and community crises." 

WCK Giving Day at Stone Ridge included all students from the Lower School (grades one through four), Middle School (grades five through eight), and Upper School (grades nine through 12), as well as faculty and staff. The day was also a "Tag Day," in which participants with a donation of three dollars could wear blue and gold in support of Ukraine.

Wishing well

The Lower School had a ‘wishing well’ dubbed "Pennies for Ukraine" to raise money for World Central Kitchen. Third graders Tatum Larrabee and Vivian Lee helped lead that effort.

“We were walking to recess, and me and Vivian were just thinking about things we could do to help people this Lent…we thought of how things are happening to Ukraine right now and we decided, well what’s better than to organize something we could donate?” Larrabee said. Her mother, an attorney with the Air Line Pilots Association, inspired her budding philanthropy. “She could help get the money to the people of Ukraine who are going to other countries.”

Initially, the two considered donating clothing, but after consulting with their teachers, they settled on the wishing well.

Lee said her family is part Ukrainian and donned a sunflower crown in her hair with blue and gold ribbons. The sunflower is Ukraine's national flower.

 “[Today] went really well, we collected $1,816 only in the cash we collected from the Lower School so far, still more coming,” Vivian said. Outside the school, the two held signs directing their classmates to where they could drop off their donations.

“Our third grade class helped make signs, so we advertised and showed people where to put the money,” Larrabee said. 

The students expressed their excitement over the success of the event.

“My favorite moment was probably knowing I might be in the newspaper,” Lee said. Larrabee added, “I liked also knowing we can help make a change for the world.”

Making an impact

Senior Michaela O'Connor is the student body president at Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart. O'Connor assisted in the construction of the donation boxes and in spreading the word about Pennies for Ukraine to the Upper School.

 “I announced it in assembly, and Katie (Katie Maurano, the student body vice president) and I sent out emails to the Upper School just reminding them to make sure they were bringing stuff in and to make sure we were really putting our best foot forward in helping out,” O’Connor said. 

Sacred Heart schools follow five goals, including Goal Three: a social awareness that motivates action and Goal Four: community building as a Christian value.

O'Connor believes the efforts of the day accurately reflected the school’s third and fourth goals. 

“Really coming together to show that we’re supportive of the Ukrainian efforts and coming together as one group supporting one mission,” O’Connor said. “These both tie in to those two goals, and I feel like it ties in to the mission of the Sacred Heart as a whole, really being aware of what is going on globally and making an impact locally.” 

Sixth and seventh grade students from Girl Scout troops #34120 and #34050 donated 15 percent of their cookie sales, adding $740 to the day's total.

Bake Sale and Lemonade Stand

Rebecca Kring, Stone Ridge’s Assistant Head of Middle School for Student Life, said a bake sale to collect money for World Central Kitchen was inspired by several eighth grade students who wanted to help Ukraine. Students were asked to make one to two dozen baked goods. 

“The plethora of baked goods that they showed up with this morning was really astounding, just the energy you could feel of students wanting to do something and to promote change and to be able to say we support World Central Kitchen, which is an organization near and dear to our heart, and the work that they’re doing to support refugees in Ukraine, in Poland, and in parts of Eastern Europe was really important to our students,” Kring said.

Senbazuru

Rena Kobayashi is a sixth grader at Stone Ridge. She instructed her teachers and classmates on how to fold the senbazuru origami shape, and in about two weeks, 1,000 paper cranes were made.

Kobayashi said the idea came after her sister told her about the Ukraine’s gesture to Japan after the island suffered the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami.

“My sister told me about what happened – well, I was still alive – in 2011…the earthquake in Japan happened and the Ukrainian people gave us a senbazuru, which is 1,000 cranes connected together with a string,” Kobayashi said. 

Lauren Winkler, a fifth and sixth grade religion teacher, said every middle school student was involved in forming the senbazuru. 

“We used some of religion class to introduce the idea of solidarity and how it’s a Catholic social teaching principle, so we talked about solidarity and we learned about Ukraine, a little bit about the history of the Ukraine and Russia, and what’s happening and how the Ukrainian people are suffering,” Winkler said. 

According to Winkler, the senbazuru idea was also borrowed from Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Park, which commemorates the suffering that followed after an atomic bomb was deployed there in 1945. 

“[The idea] came from the Peace Park in Hiroshima, after World War II, every year after that there’s a holiday to celebrate the end of the war, or the bombing of Hiroshima and students all over Japan make these and send them to the Peace Park as a symbol and wish for continued peace in the world.”

Rena and her sister Mao later presented the senbazuru during Mass at the Ukrainian National Shrine.

 “At the end of the Mass, the priest talked a little bit in Ukrainian to his parishioners about the project, then in English introduced the girls, and then they carried – it was huge – a thousand cranes up to the front, and then they helped arrange it over a small table at the front of the church,” Winkler said. 

After Mass, the girls were invited to the parish hall for coffee and donuts. This was emotional, Winkler added, because nearly everyone there was worried about loved ones remaining in Ukraine.

Midday rosary

During lunch, students and staff gathered to pray the rosary, led by Stone Ridge junior Emily Hammack. Since Russia invaded Ukraine, students have been praying the rosary for peace. 

 “We get together on Mondays and Thursdays to pray the rosary for peace around Ukraine, for that situation over there, it’s open to everybody,” Hammack said. 

Hammack said she was inspired to pray the rosary after a teacher wanted to pray the rosary for the end of the pandemic.   

“Since the beginning of all this, I felt like I wanted to do something, and I feel like for a normal person you can’t do much, and when you think about it, prayer can be very powerful,” Hammack said. “I thought for people who feel helpless, prayer would be a good option.”

During their World Central Kitchen Giving Day, the Stone Ridge students, faculty and staff raised a total of $6,146. 

On June 9, Stone Ridge's commencement speaker will be Chef José Andrés, whose daughter Lucia is a member of the class of 2022 there, and who has two other daughters who have graduated from the school, Inés in 2019 and Carlota in 2017.