Pupils from Wanaka’s Star programme for gifted learners have come up with a fundraising campaign featuring a funky glasses competition to support Wanaka optometrist Tui Russell (back, centre) in her humanitarian efforts in the Pacific Islands.
As reported in The News earlier this year, Wanaka optometrist Tui Russell was involved in a humanitarian trip to help restore sight and distribute secondhand glasses to vision-impaired people on the Fijian island of Rotuma.
When her recent presentation to the children on eyesight digressed into the Pacific people's vision problems and how they had benefited from the outreach trip, the Star pupils were immediately inspired.
Star programme teacher Danielle Nicholson said the children's latest topic focused on ethical development and management skills and followed the theme ‘‘Plant the seed of a tree you do not plan to sit in the shade of'', or in other words, helping someone and expecting nothing in return.
It had been exciting for them to find someone in the Wanaka community ‘‘doing something that matched their philosophy'', she said.
Consequently, a fundraising project was launched, designed entirely by the 12 children in the group - aged between nine and 11 - from scratch, from designing a logo through to implementing their strategies.
The ‘‘Eye Can Help/ Eye Can See'' campaign aims to raise money to support Miss Russell's humanitarian efforts in the Pacific Islands. A fundraising target of $1000 has been set by the Star group.
The children have every base covered with various roles assigned within the group, including graphic designers, accountants and a media liaison officer.
The campaign is threefold, beginning with a Funky Eyes day planned for November 27, which will help raise funds and awareness of Pacific children's eye health.
Children at Wanaka and Hawea Flat primary schools - where pupils in the Star group attend - will be encouraged to create fun and crazy glasses frames and make a donation to enter them in a school-wide competition.
The second part of the campaign on the same day will see the children selling spider drinks (fizzy drink and ice cream) to their classmates at both schools to further boost the fundraising tally.
The children have also placed donation cans at businesses around town with the Eye Can logo on them and have taken photos of supporting business operators wearing the children's own funky glasses to promote the campaign.
Mrs Nicholson said the Star programme aimed to provide ‘‘authentic situations'' for the children where they could see a real result from their actions and their enthusiasm for the Eye Can project was impressive.
‘‘Their commitment to it and their genuine desire to help somebody that they will never meet, that's what gives me hope for our community's future,'' Mrs Nicholson said.
‘‘It's wonderful to see children that can separate their needs from the world's needs . . . it's a huge ask for a human being, but for a child to be able to do it, that's just fantastic.''
A thrilled Miss Russell said, at the group's request, all the funds raised would be used to buy glasses for children in need in the Pacific Islands.
‘‘I'm really humbled by their compassion and really impressed with how organised they've been with their fundraising,'' Miss Russell said.
‘‘It's exciting to see that these kids are looking outside of their own backyard and I look forward to giving glasses to kids in the pacific Islands from kids in Wanaka.''
