By Mark Ambrogi
As Brooks School Elementary Student Council sponsor, Jennifer Mulvaney is always looking for charities that her students might want to support.
The student council, made up of third and fourth grade elected members, is allowed to do two money-making fundraisers per year. Marabeth Pareira, a Brooks School office secretary, is an ambassador for Sheets From Home and told Mulvaney about the nonprofit, which provides sheets to children in the hospital. Mulvaney shared the information with the student council, and they voted for it over their other ideas.
“Once they knew whom they wanted to support, they brainstormed ideas on how to raise the money and decided to just do a week-long fundraiser, asking families to donate to this worthy cause, with a culminating spirit day, a pajama day, at the end of the week,” Mulvaney said. “Students who brought in at least $1 any time that week could participate in the pajama day. They chose pajamas because it went with sheets.”
Mulvaney said student council members wrote up an advertisement for the school newsletter and emails that went out to families. They also made announcements in classrooms and over the intercom at the end of each day.
The student council raised $1,920, which will translate to 70 to 80 sheets.
Ya-el Halevi, of Carmel, started the nonprofit with her husband, Asaf, in 2011 after her son, Tamir, now 10, was diagnosed with neuroblastoma in 2010. He spent several months in different hospitals and is now cancer free.
“We spent weeks in a time in the hospital, it was our second home,” Halevi said. “Whenever he had to be admitted, we always brought his sheets. That’s where it started because other kids and other families saw it. They said this is cool.”
Included in the children’s sheets donations, Halevi said they include a few words to make it more personal.
“When a kid is feeling crummy in the hospital, it’s always nice to know someone is thinking about you.”
Halevi said the sheets are always the fun, colorful sheets, some featuring cartoon characters, animals and sports teams.
“We try to have a variety so we can cheer them up,” said Halevi, who survived battles with melanoma and cervical cancer.
For more, visit sheetsfromhome.org.
