Reed Intermediate School sixth grade students in Petrice DiVanno and Matt Dalton's cluster and in Amanda Eide and John Sicbaldi's cluster gathered on the last day of the school year, June 26, to celebrate raising more than $3,200 to help fund building a well in Liberia.

Thanks to the combined efforts of the two clusters, two other local student groups, and the Newtown Rotary Club, a well will be built in Zubah Town in Liberia.

Students in the two clusters worked on June 19 to raise money for the well project through a Kindness Carts event. Students worked individually or in small groups to create the Kindness Carts. The project was based on the sixth grade curriculum. It integrated lessons on math, profits and loss, cultures, traditions, and water borne diseases, along with other aspects of the curriculum, according to Ms DiVanno.

According to Newtown Middle School Project Challenge teacher Valerie Pagano-Hepburn, her students and Newtown High School students in Ben's Lighthouse's Youth Council also raised money to support building the well. Student members of the Youth Council and Project Challenge spoke at a Newtown Rotary Club meeting on April 23, when the group sought and earned the club's monetary support of the project. Project Challenge students also held a bake sale the weekend of April 1 to raise funds for the effort.

With the Ben's Lighthouse students and Project Challenge students raising $2,000, Ms DiVanno said the Reed students had hoped to raise $2,500 through the Kindness Carts project. The students were excited on June 26 with the news that they had exceeded their goal.

According to Reed fifth grade teacher Karen King, who helped connect the fundraising efforts with Liberia, all of the money from the local efforts will go to providing clean drinking water in Zubah Town.