NIE Responds to Tragedy
When David Pego, the former educational services director of the Austin American-Statesman, first suggested that young people across the United States donate pennies to buy a fire truck, through NIE, it seemed a bit far-fetched. But Pego’s visions inspired an entire movement of NIE departments to come forward in support of victims of Sept. 11. "Yes, we are buying a fire truck," he now says, "some $280,000 later."
But that was not the only NIE movement afoot. Below is a recap of the responses to the events of Sept. 11, e-mailed to Foundation Update from NIE departments large and small. Yet, it cannot begin to capture the spirit, generosity and good work done each day by NIE departments across the world.
There are many, many people out there who do their part on an ongoing basis. The best thing about NIE may be that it does not take a tragedy like this to bring out the mission and dedication of the professionals. Those qualities are out there every day by the people you read about here and all of the others in the field. And if some of the ideas mentioned below can be used in other instances at other departments, then all the better. This is only a small snapshot of a much-larger picture, and more reports will follow in future issues.
Kimberly Fabrizio, Erie (Pa.) Times-News In Education
At the Erie Times-News, thousands of area children jumped at the chance to participate in the local version of the pennies for fire trucks fund drive. Children as young as pre-school age came to the newspaper to donate savings from piggy banks, proceeds from selling their old toys at garage sales and payments from doing yard work and washing cars. Area schools, PTA groups, senior citizen centers and some businesses adopted the campaign and working together with students, raised $80,000 towards the purchase of that new fire truck for New York City.
Beth Jensen, Centre Daily Times, State College, Pa.
Jensen developed the "Pennies for Heroes" campaign for the State College region. In addition to raising more than $2,000 in pennies alone, she and other Centre Daily Times staff members raised awareness by organizing two live radio-remote broadcasts with WBUS-FM, designed to collect coins, promote fire safety and support rescue efforts all over the world.
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| The Chronicle, Centralia, Wash., reports on its NIE project on a recent front page. |
Paul Crowner, The Chronicle, Centralia, Wash.
Through other NIE folks, Crowner contacted three schools in New York City to arrange for letters from Centralia schoolchildren to be mailed to them. In late November, large thank-you cards from Public School 8 on Staten Island arrived for the students in Centralia. A front-page article by the education reporter in The Chronicle spotlighted this letter-writing campaign. It was a good example of a paper touting its NIE program without coming off as self-serving.
Diane Koch, The Morning Call, Allentown, Pa.
NIE was involved in a special tabloid the paper put out on Nov. 11 called, "Our Arab and Muslim Communities." Koch held an NIE day that sent 150 copies to each principal at 101 secondary schools so they would receive the special 24-page editorial tab on Arab-Muslin understanding. Included in the special section was a profile of the Arab and Muslim communities and individual profiles of local people from those communities.
Laurie James, The Evening Sun, Hanover, Pa.
The Student Sun is comprised of 9th-12th-grade students from six different school districts. Their first issue was completed and ready to publish on Sept. 22. Instead of that finished issue, the students decided to write, photograph and draw their reactions to this tragedy. "Teens need to talk about this situation and express their feelings," says James.
Robie Scott, The Post and Courier, Charleston, S.C.
The NIE department joined forces with the newsroom to produce a special pullout for school-age children to explain the events of Sept. 11 in terms they could easily understand. The pullout also included specific tips for dealing with their feelings and suggestions for how they could help the victims in need. Additionally, The Post and Courier donated 18,937 copies of its Sept. 11 special edition to schools within the distribution area.
Diane Goold, St. Joseph (Mo.) News-Press
Of the 30,000 special edition papers printed on Sept. 11, 4,500 were distributed to area schools.
Paula DeLong, Rocky Mount (N.C.) Telegram
The paper ran a "Pennies for America" campaign that involved the elementary schools. The schools did several things besides having the students bring in their piggy banks. They made construction paper chains, flags, pins, etc., and raised more than $6,200 for the fire truck fund.
Clema Jo Ferrell, The Eagle, Bryan, Texas
The Eagle provided 3,347 papers to classrooms on Sept. 12. Prior to this, 486 papers would go out on a normal day. One teacher had her students write an essay on what they were doing on Sept. 11, then laminated the letter with the front page as a keepsake and remembrance of the day.
Kriss Johnson, Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader
The paper joined several other mediums (radio, TV) in a fundraising campaign for the American Red Cross. The NIE program supported a school pen-pal project with a local middle school. NIE donated special NIE envelopes and stamps and helped to get school addresses from other programs in Washington, D.C., and New York.
Jan Stanley, The Record, Stockton, Calif.
The paper participated in the pennies for fire trucks campaign. It featured a beautiful color ad with a picture of a firefighter superimposed over an American flag announcing the campaign. Twenty-three schools participated and raised $12,217.55. That figure included over a half-million pennies, most of which were counted (in the coin counter) by employees at The Record. Each school received a certificate in the style of the ad for their participation and was listed in an ad.
Sharon Martin, Detroit Newspapers in Education
The staff worked immediately to cover the issue for children, starting with a question-line phone number. Yak’s Corner answered those questions in a Sept. 20 magazine, "United We Stand," that included a letter from Laura Bush. Yak also published poems and artwork from kids daily and produced a special "Kids Caring and Sharing in America" issue on Oct. 11. Yak’s Corner readers raised a total of $10,972.34 to help New York City.
Melissa Duke, The News Herald, Panama City, Fla.
The NIE department jumped on the penny-drive bandwagon about a day after it first appeared on the e-forum. Several small ads ran, and Duke took flyers out to most of the schools. The drive was called Pennies For Heroes and raised $3,481.08.
Vicki Neville, The Eagle-Tribune, Lawrence, Mass.
Teachers were invited to participate in the pennies for fire trucks campaign. Three inner-city elementary schools participated, raising $1,293.12 in three weeks. Neville visited the schools with members of local fire companies to collect the pennies. The editorial department created "War on Terrorism: A Guide for Young People," an eight-page section. It was published in the paper on Oct. 16 and generated 1,043 NIE orders from 14 new teachers.
Sherry Madsen, Deseret News, Salt Lake City
Fliers were sent to all Utah school districts asking for their cooperation in getting the word out to their schools about the fire truck fundraiser. Madsen asked students and teachers who responded to the call to send in a written piece about what they did. Those were published during October. The final week, Madsen compiled a thank you to students, teachers and parents that appeared in the newspaper.
Mary Dunham, Evansville (Ill.) Courier and Press
NIE organized Patriotic Pennies. Working with the local school corporation, 18 schools participated. A Sept. 27 assembly ended the two-week program. "Over a million red cents" is what the newspaper coverage said. Over $10,000 (in pennies) was presented to the local fire chief at the patriotic assembly.
Michele Terry, The Times-News, Burlington N.C.
On Sept. 26, The Times-News published a page of students’ thoughts about the attacks.
Cindy Sterner, The Buffalo News
Early on, Sterner noticed that many students had already taken the initiative to raise funds. So she asked her boss and the publisher if they could recognize students’ efforts in a full-page ad. After getting approval, she sent a letter to the principals (about 650) asking for the name of the fundraiser, the amount raised and the recipient of the gift. About 120 schools responded. The ad shows the $194,427 that was raised, plus the gifts of socks, gloves, first aid kits, etc., that students collected.
Christina Nevitt, Omaha World-Herald
The paper ran the tab America’s Hope for the Future. Teachers are receiving newspapers for their students every Wednesday. They currently have 8,530 students across Nebraska participating. That brings total circulation to approximately 59,710 for the duration of the program.
Liza Mattison, The Express-Times, Easton, Pa.
The NIE department sent a letter to all of their teachers. Mattison talked about how to deal with students’ questions, and how to integrate the newspaper into discussions with students. She offered their support and help if they needed it.
Opal Sue Saunders Blood, The Town Talk, Alexandria, La.
She reports delivery of 40,000 copies of the tab, "Strength of A Nation," plus 40,000 copies of The Town Talk to go to schools throughout the school year. She hand delivered the tab to 80 schools.
Steve Gondelman, The Press of Atlantic City
"I had just taken over as NIE coordinator days after the tragedy," writes Gondelman. "As soon as I found out what a tab was, we had 32,000 copies of Strength of a Nation printed and distributed to our schools."
Paula Anderson, Stevens Point (Wis.) Journal
Pennies For Heroes update: From Sept. 25 through October, public and parochial students in Stevens Point and surrounding areas raised $3,678.71.
Jim Cribbs, The Herald-Sun, Durham, N.C.
The paper ran America’s Hope for the Future and at the same time started a series called Everyday Heroes utilizing the info from the teacher’s guide of the same name. Advertising ran a 12-page tab called United We Stand. Cribbs sent flyers to the schools ahead of time asking kids to compose a few sentences to the theme of "I love my country because...." The paper published about 30 of them.
Gloria Wilkeson, South Bend (Ind.) Tribune
The NIE program ran the pennies for fire trucks campaign with the schools and youth groups in the area. They advertised in the paper and also sent e-mail "Extras" plus broadcast faxes to teachers. The coordinators from the schools and youth groups were given a packet of information and complimentary newspapers for two weeks. The students collected $9,287 for the fund.
Bobbie McClain, San Francisco Chronicle Newspapers in Education
NIENOTES is an electronic bulletin board for Chronicle NIE teachers. NIE sent a special edition to all the teachers for whom they have e-mail addresses with articles to help teachers in using the newspaper in the classroom after the events of Sept. 11. On Oct. 11, Live Without Hate, a 16-page supplement previously scheduled to run on this date, came out and could not have been more timely. The supplement included 20 ways for students to celebrate diversity at school. On Oct. 18, America’s Hope for the Future, a 12-page NIE section for grades 3 and up, was distributed free to all requesting classrooms.
Anne Coburn-Griffis, The Lima (Ohio) News
Students from Northwest Ohio raised $6,215.11 in the pennies for fire trucks fundraiser.
Deana Landers, Valley Morning Star, Harlingen, Texas
The paper created an "extra" copy that went out the evening of Sept. 11. Landers went into the schools that morning immediately after the attack was announced and started talking with students. She then helped editorial to write stories of their reactions. They raised $5,870 for the Penny Power fund.
"But the thing I am most proud of is the project that we did Dec. 3-7," Landers says. "Instead of running the America’s Hope For The Future tab as one special section, we created a week. We asked students to write essays and submit art that shows what makes their spirit stronger. Schools love it. It has truly become America’s Hope For The Future week here.
"This project brought all of our departments together. I worked with marketing to create it, advertising to sell sponsorship, editorial to write real life stories, production to lay it out and print it, circulation to distribute the extra copies, and accounting, of course, to receive the monies from sponsors.
"It wasn’t just a project to grow anything. The title has become a message to demonstrate to our community that our children’s attitude is our hope for the future."
Michelle Knoebel, Austin American-Statesman
The NIE department participated in the Pennies for Heroes program and raised almost $5,000.
Barbara Duncan, Newsday In Education
Newsday In Education printed the lessons posted on the Web by Hot Topics and sent them to all teachers on order. They desktop published them in red and blue on white paper to make them look attractive, and also sent 8 1/2" x 11" U.S. flag replicas to teachers who requested them.
Dawn Kitchell, Missourian in Education, Washington, Mo.
The Missourian organized a month-long coin collection campaign called the Missouri Children’s HOPE Fund (Helping Overcome Painful Events). A local promotional company donated collection cans, an area bank volunteered to count the change, and circulation staff collected the change each week when they dropped off newspaper bundles. Students in 18 area schools raised $2,565.36 in the campaign. The Missourian Publishing Company matched the donation.
Jennifer Dawn Hans, Fort Wayne Newspapers
Students at schools in the circulation area raised approximately $3,500 for the fire truck fund. In addition, each of the newspapers published a special section. The sections ran full-run, but they sold a significant number of additional copies to schools.
Cheryl Showstack, The Enterprise, Brockton, Mass.
The NIE department promoted the fire truck fund, and distributed suggested lessons from Hot Topics and copies of the America’s Hope for the Future tab.
Jenny Lancken, North Queensland Newspapers, Australia
They had a penny drive called NIE for Fire Trucks Fund and collected $4,971. They raised the majority of this money in one week by schools having coin collections (they do not have pennies), free-dress days and a major collection in three of their bigger shopping centers.
Mike Peterson, The Post-Star, Glens Falls, N.Y.
The weekly Geography/Current Events feature, "Around with World with Nellie Bly," was slated to cover the trial of the foreign aid workers in Kabul on Sept 12. "Obviously, that had to be re-written on short notice," writes Peterson. "But we did realize that Nellie had a duty to the kids, so the following Monday, we ran a full-page version of the feature with maps showing all the nations of the world with significant Muslim populations. This feature was then put on our Web site as a .pdf for other newspapers to download and run in their pages, gratis. It was picked up by papers in five states and Bermuda. Teachers told me they laminated it for their classrooms, and many people expressed their appreciations."
Carol Carney, The Arizona Republic, Phoenix
The NIE staff created a six-page supplement, "United We Stand, Kids Included," that contained basic information related to Sept. 11, but with other content such as information about heroes and responses from Arizona kids. A sample supplement was sent to NIE customers and also to schools without orders in an effort to introduce resources available via NIE subscriptions. So far, 125,000 additional classroom newspapers have been ordered for the current academic year, and more than 30,000 copies of the supplement have been requested.
Sarah Reed, The Review, Alliance, Ohio
In under a week, the newspaper published a flag and then followed up with an invitation to readers to donate to the fund-raising effort.
Mary Lou Daigneault, Union-News, Springfield, Mass.
The NIE department sent more than 21,000 newspapers to classrooms on Sept. 12 at no cost. Daigneault set up a workshop for all teachers on reacting to the situation, using information compiled off the Internet (e-forum references) and tied the lessons into the Massachusetts Frameworks.
Jennifer Myer, Daily News-Record, Harrisonburg, Va.
The Daily News-Record participated in the Pennies for Heroes campaign. The schools raised $8,132.96 in two weeks.
Myer also provided her teachers a compilation of newspaper-related activities.
Nancy Govoni, The News-Journal, Daytona Beach, Fla.
Twenty-six schools and community groups in Volusia County, Fla., collected $10,947.54 worth of pennies. One elementary school of 600 kids raised $1,900 and a Title I (low-income) school of 575 raised $1,200. In NIE they introduced the activity, promoted it with in-paper ads, mailings to the schools, and updates on the Web site.
Cindy Piller, Daily Times-Call, Longmont, Colo.
The replica of the Vietnam Veteran Memorial Wall had just been disassembled on the 9th—with NIE’s efforts bringing over 3,200 students to the Wall after learning about it through a special curriculum. The paper provided a special edition, and the NIE department notified schools ahead of time that they would bring copies of that special edition to their school offices to help provide information.
Kelley Arakelian, The Fresno Bee
On Sept 13, The Fresno Bee sent out (at no cost) 66,000 papers to junior high and high schools throughout central California. Teachers and students received Tuesday’s special edition, along with a copy of the Wednesday’s paper.
Sherri Goldsmith, ANG Newspapers
The educational services department and the marketing department ran ads telling children how they could help. At the Delaine Eastern School in Union City, a special program was held to celebrate the class who raised the most money. The local fire department, parents and principal were all in attendance. A creative and patriotic bulletin-board chart was designed to show the results of each class’s efforts. They are still publishing original poetry written by children, every day, on the front page of the City Living section.
Sonya Small, Rocky Mount (N.C.) Telegram
The NIE department did two projects. First they did a Patriotic Voices page. The students at various schools demonstrated the projects they have done, wrote poems, created art work, and told what it meant to be an American. The second project was the Pennies for America. Various schools raised $6,237.78.
Tammy Davis, Stacy Porter, The State, Columbia, S.C.
The NIE department participated in the "Penny Power" project. They had approximately 63 schools, churches and businesses donate an estimated $15,000.
Glory Hudson, Lodi (Calif.) News-Sentinel
They ran ads in the paper. Arrangements were made with the fire department to pick up the money at participating schools. Schools arranged patriotic assemblies outside when the fire trucks arrived. They collected $2,101.45. A local bank (Farmers & Merchants) volunteered to count and roll the small change, and they made out the cashier check at no charge.
Christine Bubb, The Idaho Statesman, Boise
They did the special section "Strength of a Nation" and put out into the schools almost 12,000 supplements. The tab helped teachers deal with the tragedies and have hope for the future. They were asked to be in a TV interview. Bubb says she worked with a brand new sponsor and they have asked to be a sponsor again on a project in 2002.
Elaine Merritt, The Intelligencer/Record, Doylestown, Pa.
Already scheduled to speak on testing and study skills at an annual NIE teacher workshop on Oct. 30, Debby Carroll also focused on using the newspaper to teach in a time of crisis. On Dec. 4, they printed "America’s Hope for the Future" and distributed it to NIE teachers. The theme of their annual Create an Ad/Write an Editorial project will be American patriotism.
DeAnn Barry, The Brainerd (Minn.) Daily Dispatch
On Sept. 12, NIE delivered 13,132 papers to area schools. Given that daily weekday circulation is 14,500 and the whole NIE program is only 64 classrooms, it was a great response. They also printed a full web-sheet flag and delivered 21,900 flags to schools.