May 1, 2013

Second-grade teacher Mrs. Deirdre Cruz has a penny for her students' thoughts on how they can help make a difference in their community.

Since the beginning of April, she and her students at Our Lady Help of Christians School on Yetman Avenue in Tottenville have been collecting "Pennies for Parkinson's" to benefit the national Parkinson's Disease Foundation.

A family connection to Parkinson's disease inspired Mrs. Cruz to get her class involved in the cause. "Pennies for Parkinson's" was adopted as part of the school's "OLHC Cares" program. The program takes place every month of the school year and a different charity is chosen each month.

Combining both religion and math skills, Mrs. Cruz said she saw the opportunity to teach her students a lesson in charity. "I also saw an opportunity to show the students a fun way to learn lessons in how to compute, add and subtract money, and counting and sorting, which is part of their math standards," she said.

To read the entire article click on the link below: 
http://www.silive.com/southshore/index.ssf/2013/05/staten_island_kids_at_our_lady.html 
  

Mrs. Cruz was the Staten Islander of the week for NY1! 

http://statenisland.ny1.com/content/top_stories/182661/sier-of-the-week--tottenville-teacher-spares-change-for-good-cause