Horizon Hands for Haiti

  • “Miss, did you hear about the earthquake in Haiti?” one of my students frantically asked.
  • “Yes, I did,” I replied.
  • “What are we going to do about it?”

It was these concerned words of one of my Year 9 students as she entered my class on Wednesday morning that eventually led to a class decision to hold a charity bake sale for Haiti.

At Horizon, we live and breathe our school motto: “Caring and Courageous.” When other parts of the world were hit last year with typhoons and earthquakes, we, as a community, reached out to our global neighbours.

When we heard about the 7.0 quake that literally flattened Haiti, leaving thousands dead and homeless, we knew that we had to do something to help, and as a school, we decided to hold three events to help raise money for Haiti.
Our first benefit for Haiti—a successful week-long bake sale– was a testimony to the generosity and kindness of the student and parent body of our school. Students lined the crowded hallways for their chance to buy from an overflowing selection of delicious and delectable treats. I witnessed one student giving up his entire jar of change, while another made several guesses at how many treats filled a jar, not  to win its entire contents, but because “[he] really want[ed] to help Haiti.”

Our next fundraising event was a week-long candy-gram sale. Students’ eyes lit up when they received hand-delivered candies, chocolates, and lollipops and a special message from their friends. Some students even bought candy-grams for their siblings and parents!  These sales raised ¥9860.

Finally, we held an art-auction. Each class in the elementary school prepared a piece of artwork for families to bid on. Parents eagerly bid on these labors of love and contributed an amazing total of ¥ 21,000 yen!

It was truly a heartwarming experience to see students and parents actively expressing their moral global conscience.

Overall, we raised ¥93,625! It may not seem like a lot of money compared to the state of need that Haiti is in, but we hope that it will help.

Our thoughts are with you, Haiti.

HJIS Welfare Committee
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