Hurting hearts motivate helping hands

MT. PLEASANT — Iowans of South East Iowa care for children and as of Friday morning, the War Sucks for Children fundraising campaign raised $29,000.

Six retired Mt. Pleasant area teachers found themselves completely sickened by the effects of the war in Ukraine on the children of the country.

Those teachers wanted to do something for the children.

Yet, only one day before, nineteen children and two adults were murdered in a mass shooting at a Uvalde, Texas elementary school.

Early in the evening, former UNICEF employee Mike Heaton addressed the tragedy, which so closely related to the campaign’s cause of helping children.

He called the vibrantly loud crowd to silence.

“We are going to take a moment of silence and have Father Paul Connolly lead us all in a prayer for those students and teachers lost yesterday in Texas,” Heaton said.

After several moments of the formerly rambunctious room not making a sound, Father Connolly of St. Alphonsus Church lead the group in prayer.

“We know that the children who were killed are with you in heaven, but that doesn’t take away the pain for those mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, he said.

He prayed for those who had hurt the children, that they would no longer take their hurt out on innocent children.

“Please Lord, give healing,” He prayed. “We pray you’ll get them through to heal their hurt. We join in prayer for those children and the children in Ukraine who are suffering terribly because of the evilness in people’s hearts.”

The room sat subdued in reverence of the enormous devastation of events affecting children across the globe.

"We were so tired of crying over images of those Ukrainian mothers and children fleeing for their lives,“ War Sucks for Children Co-founder Patty Madden told the room.

“We wanted to do something for the Ukrainian children,” Madden said, “We suggested a bake sale. Then Rosemary [Peck] said ‘Oh no, let’s have a soup supper.’ Pastor Trey [Hager] told us we could do better and to dig deep and Mike helped us do that.”

With Heaton’s guidance to make their dreams reality, they did just that.

Thus birthed the idea for the vacuum fundraiser, which had community members donating to the cause the whole month of May.

They were encouraged to donate in order to have the “War Sucks for Children” vacuums removed from their yards and placed in someone else’s.

“I haven’t seen a lot of you these past few weeks, but I have seen many of your yards,” Co-founder Bev Alderson said. “Thank you so very very much. It was exhausting and so so worth it.”

Avenues other than the vacuums contributed to the campaign.

One addition was the food for the event which was donated by The Grange and the Mt. Pleasant High School’s culinary department.

“I talked to school administrators about what our goal was,“ Co-founder Krisit Emerson said. ”The [Mt. Pleasant] High School raised money. The middle school had kids doing bake sales and paying a dollar to wear a hat. Over $650 came from the middle school.“

”VanAllen turned it into their own campaign, ‘Change for Change.’“ Emerson said. ”We expect over another $600 from there.“

Emerson told a heart warming story of running into a parent brimming with pride for her child.

"She said her daughter went into her bedroom, took her piggy bank and dumped out the money into a Ziploc bag,“ Emerson recounted. ”She had been saving for something she wanted, and told her mom she wanted to take it to school and give it to the children of Ukraine.”

Even during the final push for donations, a middle school boy raised his hand to make a donation during a $1,000 match campaign provided by Heaton and his wife.

Middle school students also volunteered their time to the event.

The students hosted tables of ‘inspired gifts’ and encouraged attendees to donate through a purchase of one for the children of Ukraine.

The gifts included ‘School in a Box’ for $190, which would provide three months of school for at least forty students.

There was a ‘Recreation in a Box’ which would provide some normalcy for the children.

Two smaller ‘inspired gift’ options included ‘Hygiene in a Box,’ and simply a bundle of baby blankets.

Children wanted to help these other children.

WACO High School’s foreign exchange student Odee was present for the final event.

Odee was already amazed at the generosity of the WACO community.

They raised over $9,000 to help him stay in America another year and donate the remaining funds to Ukrainian families in need.

“I came to America in August and I’ve been here for 9 months now,” seventeen year old Odee said. ”It’s really great to see that many people want to help people they don’t know 5,000 miles away. It just blows my mind how many people want to help and are that kind and helpful.“

The War Sucks for Children campaign initially hoped to raise $10,000, but even before the finale event at The Union Block Wednesday, they raised $21,000.

By the end of the night, the total climbed to $26,000.

By Friday morning, the $29,000 total was reached.

Heaton, however, feels confident that the campaign will surpass $30,000 once all the mailed in donations and remaining scattered donations throughout the community make their way in.

“Mt. Pleasant is such a really cool community and really stepped up,” Heaton said.

Six teachers’ heartache, one man’s convictions, and a community ready to act has bridged a 5,000 mile divide between countries to love children well.

Comments: AnnaMarie.Ward@southeastiowaunion.com