Keller Students Learn The Spirit Of Giving
KELLER (CBSDFW.COM) - What would you do with $1,000 if you could help someone in the community?
That wasn't a difficult question for a group of North Texas elementary school kids who said that they would buy some Christmas gifts... for other kids, of course! Perhaps 10-year-old student Brett Huff said it best: "It really warms your heart when you see another person smiling. It's nice."
The group of 20 fourth-graders from Florence Elementary School in the Keller Independent School District are in a 'Pay It Forward' program. Dave Huff, Brett's father, is the man who helped them join by shelling out $1,000 of his own cash. "It's much more fun this way," Huff said, holding a stack of $20 bills.
D'Lee Marshall founded the 'Pay It Forward' group, and said that it is all about the children. "It's their ideas, it's their experience and it's their connection with whoever they're helping," Marshall said.
This time, the children are helping the 12 and older crowd with the 'Big Brothers Big Sisters' program. The fourth-graders are buying them board games to play with their families at Christmas. Erin McDonald with 'Big Brothers Big Sisters' said, "Board games promote families getting together, because you can't play a board game with just one person. So, when you get the entire family together with, like, 'Catch Phrase,' you get to pass it around. It's a fun and interactive way for the family to get together and not just watch TV."
Walmart got caught up in the spirit of giving too, and gave the group a 10 percent discount on every board game that they purchased. That gave Huff some leftover money, that was used to buy gift cards for other kids to hand out.
"You get to see the faces on these kids, and then later the kids who get the gifts," said Dave Huff, himself a member of the Big Brothers Big Sisters board.
Dave Huff has already seen what the charitable giving has done for his own son's ideas about the holidays. "Christmas is more about giving than getting," Brett Huff said.
