NJ Teacher Starts GoFundMe To Help Buy Christmas Presents For Less Fortunate Students
PATERSON, N.J. (CBSNewYork) -- A New Jersey teacher raised money to buy 500 presents for her 500 students, and as the saying goes, "the more you give, the more you receive."
Jennifer Olawski told CBS2's Ali Bauman she has a great time teaching physical education at the Community Charter School of Paterson, but she felt heartsick after asking a first grader if she was excited for the holidays.
"There was no sparkle in her eye, nothing," she said. "I said, 'why aren't you excited?', and she basically told me she never got a Christmas present before."
She decided she had to do something, but what kind of teacher plays favorites? Olawski created a GoFundMe page which collected more than $4,000 in donations. On Monday, she handed all 500 of her elementary school students a personalized, hand-wrapped present.
"I kept shaking the box thinking 'what is this? what is this?'," fourth grader Kadir Younge said. It wound up being a slime maker, while younger kids got coloring books and crayons.
"One of the toughest third graders, he just looked at it and before he ever opened it he started to cry and hugged me," Olawski said.
Every student was also given a winter hat and a pair of gloves. Ms. Olawski said even if those weren't the gifts her students asked for, she felt those were the gifts they needed.
"It was snowing and I saw a lot of the students coming in, some of them don't have jackets and most of them don't have hats or gloves," Olawski said.
Kadir went home beaming after what he considers a Christmas miracle.
"How'd she get 500 kids all that?" he wondered.
"I'm just looking at him and the smile on his face, I just knew he was very excited for that to happen," Kadir's mom Laticia Alexander said.
So if giving a little gets you a lot, where does 500 happy faces leave Ms. Olawski?
"This whole project to me was to show them I love them and care about them and I'm in their corner because some of them, they don't have anyone in their corner," she said.
It seems as if she's got a lot of new friends in her corner now.
