Donations help send Mary Todd students to Washington, D.C.

When Elizabeth Mullins, Jose Astudillo and their fifth-grade classmates at Lexington’s Mary Todd Elementary School left Thursday morning on a bus bound for Washington, D.C., it was with help from residents who donated $49,324.

An annual multiday trip to Washington, D.C., is a given for fifth-grade students at many Lexington elementary schools, where parents raise money or pay the cost of more than $600 a child.

Some schools with more affluent families had activity funds with budgets of more than $300,000 for the current school year. At Mary Todd, the activity fund had only $16,000, the lowest total of any Fayette County school.

Before school started last fall, Jennifer Bell, the administrative dean at Mary Todd, told the Herald-Leader that 90 percent of the school’s students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. Bell had said that without donations, it would be almost impossible to take the trip, which includes a two-night hotel stay.

“When we started this, nobody thought we could do it. Even our teachers and staff did not think we would be able to raise the money,” Bell said this week. “The outpouring of love from this community has been overwhelming to all of us. It is this community ... that has made this possible.”

Bell said she thought a Herald-Leader newspaper article published in August “hit a real chord” and inspired 158 people, plus some businesses and churches,. A medical group pledged an annual donation for the next five years, and a law firm took up a donation among its employees.

Jane Shaw, a member of Cornerstone Baptist Church, said that when she read about the students’ struggle to raise money, “to tell you the truth, it brought tears to my eyes.”

She said she feared that Mary Todd students “were being left out.”

“I mentioned it to my Sunday School class. We had been looking for something that we could do to reach out to the community. We began collecting money,” Shaw said.

They donated toiletries for each child, bought snacks and gave each child $15 in cash.

Other churches, including Broadway Baptist Church, donated spending money, blankets, snacks, water bottles and rain ponchos, Bell said.

Additionally, almost every family paid about $200 for their child to take the trip, even if they had to make monthly payments, Bell said.

Some of the donors were retired teachers, counselors and principals. Others were people whose children had taken a Washington trip or who remembered their own trips as students and found it life-changing.

Thanks to the donations, every child has a new red hoodie with the words “Washington, D.C, and Mary Todd” and a T-shirt for the trip. Every student has a new small backpack and a water bottle. The children will eat at restaurants, and each has $35 to spend.

“For a school that’s been in a high-poverty situation, it really has raised up everybody and shown that we can do this,” Bell said.

Teacher Tonya Branch said the donations show students that they have community support, “and people are behind them and interested in getting them to learn things and see new places.”

Students had to meet academic and behavior requirements to take the trip.

On Thursday morning, the students were excited as they gathered in the school’s library with their luggage and prepared to board a bus for the trip. Their parents were beaming.

“I’m glad the community stepped up and gave these children the opportunity to see something they may not get to see otherwise,” parent Tina Warner said.

Warner’s daughter Gracie Lowery said she wanted to see the Lincoln and Washington monuments.

Eight chaperones will guide about 36 students around the nation’s capital.

The itinerary includes Capitol Hill, Smithsonian museums, several monuments and memorials, Ford’s Theatre, where Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, and Arlington National Cemetery.

Students “are really excited about getting out of Lexington,” Branch said. “It’s their first big trip this far away and without their parents.”

She said the students have just finished studying about government.

One student, José, 10, said he wanted to see “Congress and the three branches of government.”

Elizabeth Mullins and Cesar Chavez, also 10, said they’re most excited to see the exterior of the White House.

“I’m very grateful that we have people who are willing to donate their own money for us to go on a trip,” Elizabeth said.

This story was originally published April 7, 2016 at 2:03 PM with the headline "Donations help send Mary Todd students to Washington, D.C.."