Members of the second grade at Custer Elementary School raised nearly $500 for the Humane Society of Monroe, had a good time doing it and their teachers were able to have all of the activities fit together as part of the school’s regular curriculum, too. 

    A second grade math lesson is called the T-Shirt Factory but the teachers changed it to a Dog and Cat Gram Factory lesson.  The teachers incorporated all of the prescribed lessons, fitting the dog/cat factory portion into them.  In social studies, the students were studying economics, particularly how people work together in a community.  The students were introduced to the importance of helping dogs and cats by watching a Humane Society commercial. 

    Deciding to help local cats and dogs, the students in assembly-line style colored dog- and cat-grams and then taped them to suckers.  Always on the lookout for smart marketing, the students also made a commercial to show at school and made posters, too.  They sold the dog- and cat-gram suckers at lunch and donated all of the profits -- $488.95 – to the local humane society in a short ceremony Monday, March 7. 

    Teachers participating in the project were: Sherri Zub, Jan Heck, Tara Pafford, Sarah Kokx, Jennifer Reed and Polly Fraser.