ORANGE PARK – A group of students and their families filed into the Walmart Supercenter on Saturday, Dec. 6, with smiles on their faces and one goal on their minds.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Christmas shopping. But, not for themselves, of course. For local children in need of some holiday joy.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Orange Park Elementary teacher Christopher Harris welcomed his sixth-grade math students to their annual afternoon shopping spree, dedicated to purchasing gifts for the Salvation Army’s Angel Tree initiative. Each year, Harris’ classes participate\u00a0in\u00a0math fundraisers using ALEKS, an online learning program that Harris said matches his students\u2019 curriculum.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0Participating students spent\u00a0the entire month of November doing extra\u00a0ALEKS\u00a0math problems\u00a0at home. For each minute they spent working or\u00a0for every\u00a0topic they passed, sponsors donated money.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The students raised a total of $8,400, the highest Harris said the program has ever achieved in his three years of running it.<\/p>\n
“I’m not overly surprised. Our school is fantastic. Our families are fantastic.”<\/p>\n
Students and their parents arrived at the Blanding Boulevard location at 2 p.m. and were given more than an hour to walk the store’s robust aisles and pick items from the lists. For each angel they were shown, students had a $140 budget.<\/p>\n
Harris said this year, items ranged from clothes and intricate toys to simple hygiene products.<\/p>\n
“I try to tell them everything’s a blessing no matter what,” he said. “Sometimes they’re surprised that sometimes there are things on there that they wouldn’t consider to be a gift. One of the first ones that I gave to someone was a younger child, a toddler, I think or an infant, and they needed diapers.”<\/p>\n
Initially, Harris thought the amount his students raised would far exceed the number of Angels available on the tree. However, his classes ended up gifting the entire tree …. and then some.<\/p>\n
A total of 60 angels received gifts this year. And with a leftover $200, Harris said his classes purchased fleece blankets, socks and puzzle books for the Salvation Army’s Senior Angels.<\/p>\n
“The lady at the Salvation Army was, I mean, overwhelmed when I first called her. She was in tears. We took every angel that she had,” he said.<\/p>\n
Dozens of baskets full of gifts were lined up in the Patio and Garden section, where, despite the busy crowd, the store designated a few checkout lines for the students. Following that, volunteers accompanied Harris to the Salvation Army.<\/p>\n
Harris said the successful fundraiser is a two-pronged approach: teaching students not just the importance of education, but also the value of giving back to their community. He hopes to involve other schools.<\/p>\n
“I am going to try, as we talked about, expanding it. Even just maybe within our own school first.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORANGE PARK – A group of students and their families filed into the Walmart Supercenter on Saturday, Dec.…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":440307,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[5229,15024,15015,15023,15026,3188,15016,723,15021,7310,15020,15022,7648,15018,15017,15025,15019,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-440306","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-argyle","10":"tag-clay-county","11":"tag-doctors-inlet","12":"tag-eagle-harbor","13":"tag-fl","14":"tag-fleming-island","15":"tag-florida","16":"tag-green-cove-springs","17":"tag-jacksonville","18":"tag-keystone-heights","19":"tag-lake-asbury","20":"tag-margaret","21":"tag-middleburg","22":"tag-orange-park","23":"tag-pace-island","24":"tag-penney-farms","25":"tag-united-states","26":"tag-united-states-of-america","27":"tag-unitedstates","28":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","29":"tag-us","30":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115701508186239725","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=440306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440306\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/440307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=440306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=440306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=440306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}