Our ThinkQuest team was on a mission. We were trying to collect money and spare change to donate to Hives Save Lives for Africa. Hives Save Lives is a non-profit organization, which donates bee hives to families in other continents and countries that are barely surviving. This organization trains the family on beekeeping basics and provides them with all the necessary tools. When the hive arrives, the bees can make honey and pollinate plants for the family and local farmers, allowing them to have food and a source of income.

Our whole school pitched in and donated money for Hives Save Lives. Thanks to Mr. Dallaire and Mrs. Stanley, the Principal and Assistant Principal, our team informed students at our school about this event over the intercom, during morning announcements. We explained what Hives Save Lives was, and why we were studying the honeybee as our ThinkQuest topic. We put a time limit of two days on our fund raising so as not to put too much pressure on the students or the teachers. We also designed a flyer and printed out a copy for every student to take home in their Wednesday envelopes. This was so the parents would understand why we were doing the fundraiser. Plus it let the parents know the Parent Teacher Organization in our school also supported the cause. The PTO agreed to donate up to $100 dollars for Hives Save Lives Africa.

The morning we were going to collect the money, our whole team was really excited and nervous. What if no one gave us any change? So we started to go from classroom to classroom. Boy were we surprised! We went around, collecting the heavy buckets of change. After we collected from all the grade levels, which in our school is Kindergarten to Fifth grade, we came back to our classroom. We put all the change into one big bucket! Which, by the way, was decorated with honeybees! Everyone on the team had to put all of their effort into picking up the bucket of money. Actually, no one really could pick it up it was so heavy!

When we went home that day from school, I went to a Coinstar to convert the change into bills. I was so excited at Coinstar. I really wanted to see how long it would take to convert all that change to bills but more than that I wanted to see how much money we actually collected for our cause. It took about ten minutes, and we made approximately $200! I was so excited, I could not even put my feelings properly into words!

The school's excitement for our project, Hives Save Lives, really was heart felt. It made everyone feel like we really did something positive for the environment and families we will never even meet. Even our friends caught the bee bug so to speak, they were just as excited as we were! They called me that night wanting to know how much we made in bills. This showed they were actually interested in the outcome for Hives Save Lives Africa.

We feel so great now. My personal opinion of how I feel is, well, like a hero. I feel like I helped people who were in a desperate need. I feel like I got involved in an awesome program and made a difference. The team was really so happy. We wanted to celebrate!

As a post script, the second day of collection, which was a Friday, we were hit with a huge snow storm and school was cancelled. When we came into school Monday we thought everyone would just forget about our cause. Guess what? We collected even more money! In fact, as we were finalizing our website, the money was still pouring in, almost a week later! We are well over $300 with our community still donating!

Kids do have the power to move the world!