A group of Barrington Middle School students recently raised more than $10,000 for Heifer International, a nonprofit organization that works to eradicate poverty and hunger by distributing animals to families in need around the world.

BMS teacher Stephanie Bannon said she has worked with Heifer International for about a decade and recently focused on a program called “Read to Feed.”

The fund-raiser is organized as a read-a-thon, where students ask people to sponsor them for reading books. Then students have three months to read as many books as they can. At the end of that time, they reach out to their sponsors to collect the money they have raised. 

“Once we collected all the money, we had a really fun assembly where we announced the total amount of funds raised and highlighted the top 10 fund-raisers,” Bannon said. 

The eighth grade ELA teachers at Barrington Middle School decided to incorporate this as a deeper learning project where students learn about the fund-raising process and how non-profit organizations run. Students also learned the importance of global citizenship and see how they can make an immediate impact on people all over the world.

Students were then tasked with voting on the top five gifts they wanted to donate with the $11,045.25 raised. The gifts included a flock of chickens, a water buffalo, a pair of cattle, a honeybee farm, a sheep, a heifer, a goat, a community solar kit and many other items.