Chandler Park Academy’s Michigan Youth in Government program selected to help Angels of Hope with the goal of making a difference in our local community—little did we know what a difference sixteen 9th and 10th grade students could make! We “adopted” a family affected by cancer and set a high objective for ourselves to be able to purchase a refrigerator and clothing off of our family’s wish list. To raise money, our school support us in our “Week of Hope.” Day one involved educating our entire student population on Angels of Hope through the Angels of Hope website and introducing the student body to our adopted family. Days two and three included a ribbon sale, to spread awareness about how cancer affects families, and classroom and lunchroom change wars, where students collected pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, and even bills. For day four, all Michigan Youth in Government students, with the aid of their parents, brought in food for our after school bake sale. Our “Week of Hope” culminated with a school-wide dress down day, in which our normally-uniformed students wore awareness ribbons and jeans for $2.00. In the end, our school far-surpassed our goal of a fridge and clothing; we raised nearly $2,000. The Michigan Youth in Government students were moved with how much of a difference they could make and our school was proud and impressed with the outcome. Our students hope to make the “Week of Hope” an annual occurrence and even want to get involved in the Christmas program this year.
