By JULIE KEANE, Globe staff reporter
January 13, 2005

Heelan High School students and faculty raised over $1,300 to give to Catholic Relief Services in hopes of helping those who have been affected by the tsunami.

The idea was brought to Terry Tomke, Heelan High School principal, on Jan. 3 as students were coming back from Christmas break.

"The kids were talking in class and a couple of teachers came to me and said we have some kids talking about this what are some things we can do," Tomke said. "Heelan was founded on faith, knowledge, values and service and our faith and service are two the biggest things. We asked ourselves what can our society give to them in their time of need?"

Tomke said some of the ideas included putting together care packages, volunteering somewhere in town or taking up a one-time collection.

"We thought a collection would be very nice," Tomke said. "We mentioned it to the students and said if they wanted to donate to the Catholic Relief fund they could."

The collection was taken up at the start of second period on Tuesday, Jan. 4. Any student or faculty who wanted to donate to the fund was able to at that time. The money raised was going to be given to Msgr. Augustine the next day. All and all, the school raised over $1,300 to be given to Catholic Relief, which was more than Tomke had anticipated.

"Our kids never cease to amaze me," Tomke said. "We have 500 hundred students and 50 faculty, I was guessing everyone would give about a dollar each and we would have $500 to give. When it was over $1,300, it just made me proud. This is just a testament to our kids."

This is not the first time Heelan students have come together to collect money for others in need. Just before Christmas students pooled together their money to help send a Heelan parent to Mexico for her young brother's ordination.

Tomke said although Heelan students do donate a lot of time and money for others in need, this time was a little bit different than times in the past.

"A lot of the times we do a jeans day and the dollar you give to wear jeans will go to a certain cause," Tomke said. "This time we thought lets just do this out of the goodness of our hearts."

Aside from the collection, the students have been learning about the effects of the tsunami in their history and theology classes. Tomke said students understood that as a society of plenty, they needed to do something for a society with very little.

"This shows me to believe that some of the things we are trying to assist their parents by instilling in them is to be good stewards - showing compassion for others," Tomke said. "It shows the true metal of our kids because this really came from them."