Editor’s Note: The youngsters in the story are 6th graders who knew Mr. Pendergast, an ALS patient. They have been very active, along with their parents on various ALS fundraisers. They are an excellent model for the creativity needed to find interesting and fun ways to generate donations.

By Katherine Cryer-Hassett, 6th grade

Theresa, Suzie and I love to sing. One day near Christmas in December 2003, we were all bored as can be, each in our own houses. That’s when my mom thought of the idea of us to get together and go caroling.

We all thought that it was a great idea, so I printed out sheets of Christmas music to sing. Theresa came up with an even better twist to the idea. She suggested that we should get donations when we carol! Then we thought, that if the donations went to the Ride for Life, it would be great!

We all liked the plan so we started to carol. We sang up and down the block together. We explained if they would like to make any donations, it would all go to the Ride for Life. If the people did not know about the ride we would explain it.

We weren’t planning on getting too many donations when we started caroling but we were wrong. When we were done we were exhausted. We sat in chairs, and counted the money. $55.31 wasn’t what we thought we were going to get. We were amazed at how much money we had raised.

We were very proud of ourselves. We liked the fact that this would go to a good cause. Everyone had a great time caroling, and we all enjoyed doing it together.