Week of activities in BCPS schools to celebrate, raise awareness of home-grown Kids Helping Hopkins organization

Week of activities in BCPS schools to celebrate, raise awareness of home-grown Kids Helping Hopkins organization

What: Twenty years ago, a group of Baltimore County educators and community leaders led by music teacher Anita Rozenel formed an organization designed to support children being treated at the Children’s Center at Johns Hopkins Hospital. By marshalling the creativity and compassion of the school system’s students, Kids Helping Hopkins served not only to provide support to children at the Center — many of them students in BCPS schools — but also as a way for students to learn the value of doing good works to help ease hospital stays for ill classmates. Two decades later, BCPS will observe a week of activities to celebrate the organization’s partnership with county schools and to remind students and teachers of the continuing need for their support of the Children’s Center and its patients. Activities will include information during morning announcements, a fundraising effort, social media communication by students, wearing yellow on Thursday, April 23, to support Kids Helping Hopkins, and distribution of stickers for students to wear to show their support.

When: Monday, April 20, 2015, through Friday, April 24, 2015, during school hours

Where: All BCPS schools are invited to participate

Background: The week of awareness is in preparation for additional events and projects planned by individual schools and the school system scheduled for next fall. While much of Kids Helping Hopkins involves students making cards, books, stuffed animals, toys, and other crafts for Hopkins patients, the organization also has been an important fundraiser for the work of the Children’s Center. Since 1994, more than $1.7 million has been raised by Kids Helping Hopkins.