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Students donate to tsunami fund
Published January 29, 2005
ALVIN — When Alex Triana saw images of the natural disaster that killed an estimated 170,000 people, the 11-year-old couldn’t sit idle.
“I started to collect money, and I went to my neighbors,” said Alex, a Walt Disney Elementary School fourth-grader. He raised $15, then donated it to victims devastated by the Dec. 26 tsunami in South Asia and East Africa.
He wasn’t the only one.
Courtney Hildreth, 10, had planned to buy a stuffed animal with the $5 she saved. Instead she donated it to help others who survived the event described by some as a natural disaster of Biblical proportions. Her classmates donated all they could, and some even tried to give away their lunch money.
Their efforts, combined with donations from educators, parents and businesses raised $3,000. They gave the money to Jim McIngvale, known to many as Mattress Mac of Houston’s Gallery Furniture, to go toward the Bush-Clinton Houston Tsunami Fund. McIngvale has stepped forward to lead the Houston-area effort.
“You have reached out and helped people, and there is nothing more important than that,” McIngvale told students during a Friday visit. “That is a job well done. … We are all members of a giant human family.”
On Dec. 26, McIngvale was at Gallery Furniture when he first learned of the disaster. Customers kept calling, wanting to know what he would do to help. The furniture giant is known for his generosity, including at Walt Disney Elementary, where the school received free furniture for its teachers’ lounge.
McIngvale’s first response was to send a team of doctors to help, but that changed after he learned of the torn infrastructure and washed-away roads the countries must rebuild. After learning of the fund-raising effort of former presidents George Bush and Bill Clinton, McIngvale told the students he decided to join the cause.
“It’s amazing the depth of this tragedy,” he said.
McIngvale spoke to a couple who rented a car, then had an urge to go to a hilltop just before the tsunami hit. The first wave swept over their car, he said. When the second rolled through, they could only see the sky.
Then, there was the three-story school in Indonesia, where the lives of 800 students were saved after they were led to the top floor.
“But 800 boys and girls don’t have any moms or dads,” McIngvale said. “They’re all gone.”
He also told the story of a young girl who saved the lives of people at a resort. The girl had studied tsunamis in school just weeks before going to Asia, he said.
Walt Disney Elementary’s donation drive was coordinated by Communities in Schools Coordinator Terry Oliver at the request of the school’s principal, Lee Courville.
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WANT TO DONATE?
Make checks
payable to:
Bush-Clinton Fund
Send to:
Bush-Clinton Fund
P.O. Box 56369
Houston, Texas 77256
To donate by credit card, visit Greater Houston Community Foundation at www.ghcf.org through Monday.
Contributions will be distributed through Greater Houston Community Foundation
All funds will be distributed to organizations selected and sanctioned by the White House that have operations on the ground in the affected areas.
The Bush-Clinton Fund is a component fund of the Greater Houston Community Foundation, a 501(c)3 public charity
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