VIDEO: St. Joan of Arc Students Make Handmade Cards for Bright Christmas Fundraiser
JACKSON HEIGHTS — It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas inside the art room at St. Joan of Arc Catholic School in Jackson Heights.
Students decked the halls and cards with silver and gold to sell to help the Tablet’s Bright Christmas fundraiser make Christmas special for children in need in the Diocese of Brooklyn. Like Christmas elves, keeping time with the little drummer boy, they got to work on handmade season’s greetings adorned with jingle bells, the holly and the ivy.
“It was like fun creating and like painting it and like decorating,” fifth grader Riley Espina said.
The students know kids from one to 92 all deserve a little Christmas magic.
“Every kid deserves something on Christmas, not just the people who can’t afford it,” said fifth grader Rea Cela. “Everyone does.”
Some cards had a merry little Christmas tree, others showed a silent nigh. And whether your Christmas is blue or white, Principal Agnes Mosejczuk says her students’ little hands are making a big difference.
“They are helping someone who they haven’t met, someone who they don’t know the name of, they don’t know the situation. What we teaching our children is just, priceless,” Mosejczuk said.
“They’re also handmade, which means they’re not just like, made by a factory without love and care. But here they’re made with care,” Cela said.
It’s a reminder that, away in a manger, a baby was born and changed the world. So their message — come all ye faithful and support a cause that seems to say throw your cares away.
“Every kid should have like, a toy on Christmas because like, some of them are like good and nice,” Espina said.
“They were asking me, can we come back during lunch? And can we come back after school? And can we stay after school to continue making them? And we will,” Mosejczuk said.
Once students at St. Joan of Arc Catholic School finish making the cards they’ll be stamped and packaged and sold at the school. Five of them will cost $20, with 100 percent of the proceeds going toward Bright Christmas.