By Meryn Fluker, Staff Writer
If it wasn’t for a teacher’s inspired bout of insomnia, some Prior Lake High School students would have missed out on an opportunity for organized altruism.

High school social studies teacher Ryan Wagner and students in his Advanced Placement world history class raised $3,500 for Partners in Health, an organization dedicated to providing health care to those in poverty in various locations throughout the world, including Haiti.

“It started with an insomnia attack caused by Anderson Cooper [of CNN],” Wagner said.

After being consumed by images and information pouring in from Haiti after an earthquake struck the country on Jan. 12, Wagner wanted to do something to help, and he wanted to involve his students. He walked into his classroom Tuesday morning, one week after the earthquake, and showed a video highlighting the devastation plaguing the small nation. He then asked his four sections of Advanced Placement world history students, about 115 kids, to raise $500.

“I said, ‘All you have to do, if each of you can find five bucks, that’s all, we can get $500,’” Wagner said. “We’ve had a project from before break that was supposed to be due. I said, ‘If you can get $500, I’ll push your project due date back a week.’”

The catch was that students had three days to raise the money, because Wagner said he wanted to be quick and aggressive while focusing the group’s efforts on immediate medical relief. This attention to medical relief is in part why, after researching the organization, Wagner selected Partners in Health for the funds.

“I decided to do Partners in Health, mainly because I was stuck on these images of kids and people who had preventable injuries or diseases that likely are going to die, where the main reason they’re going to die is because they’re in Haiti,” he said. “If this earthquake would’ve hit L.A., some of these same people, in the same scenario, wouldn’t be dying.”

By the end of the first day, Wagner’s students banked about $160, just from kids emptying their pockets and wallets. By that time, he said it was apparent they would reach their goal. Wagner even set up a donation page online to track students’ success and collect funds. In his words, “the kids really ran with it,” and their initiative left him impressed.

One student surpassed the class goal in her lone fundraising efforts. Sophomore Alex McGraw collected $550 in roughly 40 minutes, simply by calling friends, family members and neighbors and telling them about the cause. Her donations helped bring the day two total to more than $1,500.

“I think a lot of parents were wanting to help,” the 16-year old-said. “I called my neighbors and they just gave $200. They wanted to help in Haiti, and Partners in Health was a good place to donate it to.”

Initially, Wagner was unsure of how well his students would respond to his challenge. While he has a long-standing interest in Haiti and has fundraised for the country before – even having guests at his wedding pledge money to a nonprofit, Haiti Outreach, in lieu of gifts – Wagner was cognizant of how divided his students’ attention could be simply because of how involved they are in the school and community.

McGraw said the images in the Haiti video shocked her and her classmates and motivated them to do something about the suffering. In an odd twist, the class had just covered the Trans-Atlantic slave trade and the Haitian slave revolt the week earlier.

Even though the students met their goal before the set deadline, donations are still trickling in and the class donation site is still active.

“We’re in world history class and we’re learning about all these things that are happening, and this, one day, is going to be world history,” she said. “It’ll be cool to know that we helped out with it. Even though it’s a little bit, it still helps.”

Meryn Fluker can be reached at (952) 345-6375 or mfluker@swpub.com.

What other students have done for Haiti
Jeffers Pond Elementary: Student council members plan to discuss fundraising ideas with their advisor.
Hidden Oaks and Twin Oaks middle schools: Students are participating in a school-wide “Hats for Haiti” campaign next week. Students and staff will bring $2 in exchange for being allowed to wear a hat to school.
Grainwood Elementary: Raised $568.20 for Haiti in one day by encouraging students and staff to wear Vikings apparel and donate a dollar.
Glendale Elementary: Staff members have been collecting money to support special-education teacher Paula Obrand. Her husband is from Haiti and has many relatives and friends there now.
Small Business Management and Entrepreneurship classes at Prior Lake High School: Students created greeting cards and ran greeting card businesses at parent-teacher conferences. They donated all of their profits – $100 – to the Red Cross for Haiti relief.
National Honor Society students at the high school: Students created a competition between fellow NHS members to raise $1,000.