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Woodland Creature
Help an East Village School Win $500K
I was walking to my favorite local diner tonight when I was stopped by a group of teenagers outside the school a block away from my apartment.
“Will you please take a few minutes to help us out?” a teenage girl asked. I was a bit wary, given the prevalence of charity hustlers I tend to avoid eye contact with and mumble a bashful “sorry” to as I pass them on New York City streets. But it was 8 p.m., past charity hustling hours. She told me all they needed was for me to vote for their school on Facebook so they could win a $500,000 grant and they were camping out in the schoolyard to get as many votes as they can from the neighborhood. “The top five schools in the competition right now are private schools,” she lamented.
An adorable boy who couldn’t have been older than 14 led me over to a card table set up with a laptop among their makeshift campsite of pop-up tents.
“Are you really sleeping here and everything? All of you?” I asked, incredulously.
“Yep!” he replied, as he walked me through the voting process. “Our principal said we could!”
As soon as I was done (it really only took about a minute), I left to a chorus of “Yay!”s and “Thank you!”s. I felt like a hero and all it took was a few mouse clicks. You can be a hero to these kids too — with all the time they’re putting in to recruit votes (over 22,000 so far, though that only gets them the #36 spot), they deserve it!
nyc education philanthropy east village kids
