P.S. 89 students fight malaria on Community Day

P.S. 89 students fight malaria on Community Day

After learning the plight of their African peers, P.S. 89 students took to the schoolyard on a warm, early spring Saturday afternoon to spread awareness about the deadly malaria disease. 

The Saturday, April 19 Community Day event featured an exhibition by the school’s award winning ballroom dancers, a petting zoo, a high energy DJ and fun activities with a focus on malaria awareness and environmental concerns.

P.S. 89 partnered with the program Sweat for Nets, run by the organization Children for Children, which organizes service-learning projects for school children.

“We take a complex global issue and make it relevant for the kids,” said Erik Zimmerman, senior manager of global and online programs at Children for Children. “By helping protect other children from the threat of malaria, the children out of harms way are empowered at an early age to take a global perspective and look at the world as their community at large.”

In the classroom, students worked on online lessons that teach about the global malaria pandemic. They found that the disease, is the leading killer among the world’s youth. 

Students made t-shirts with anti-malaria slogans and pictures of mosquitoes, the most common carrier of the disease. 

Teacher Michelle Cubria said, “This is the fun part of the work, the culminating activity.”

After modeling the shirts during the ballroom dance numbers, the students sold them to raise money for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Foundation to buy insecticide treated bed nets.

Purchased for as little at $5 each, every net can protect up to three children from disease carrying insects. 

Assistant principal Caren Shapiro and parent coordinator Fran Palmieri, as well as other teachers, parent volunteers and representatives of Children for Children, organized the annual Community Day. 

While many enjoyed all the activities, the petting zoo was a major attraction, featuring a llama, goat, cow and rabbit. Other popular activities included making “Eat Healthy” placemats, “Make a Mural” flowerpot decoration and “Ball Toss for Bed Nets.”

Students advertised the event at local businesses, with many alumni and community members attending the day’s festivities.

The student workers were rewarded for their volunteer efforts with pizza from Prego’s and breakfast from the Bagel Den on Williamsbridge Road. 

CDC President and CEO Charles Stokes best summed up the P.S. 89 kid’s work.

 

“It’s hard to imagine that a single person can make a difference in fighting global problems like malaria,” Stokes offered. “But individuals across the U.S., including children, are proving that individual action does have an impact.”