LEAVING YOUR Legacy

For nearly 30 years, the Detroit Lakes Adventist Christian School in Minnesota has hosted a bike-a-thon for charity. This past school year, after watching a “Maranatha Mission Stories” television episode on the need for clean water, principal Sandra Daniels suggested that they raise money for Maranatha’s water well program. She shared Maranatha video clips of the challenge that people around the world have with collecting water and asked them to imagine being in that situation. Kids were in disbelief about the condition of the water, as well as the distances people had to walk to get to it.

“You could tell the kids were excited about doing something collectively as a group,” said Daniels. Students worked to secure sponsorships before the event, and some parents and grandparents even got involved by engaging their workplaces. In all, the school raised nearly $2,000 for clean water. Daniels knows this effort is not only making a difference for those in need of clean water, it’s impacting her students as well. “It makes them aware of what some people have to do for water, and they’re grateful for what we do have. Maybe someday they’ll want to be a missionary or contribute to similar projects. They felt really proud of themselves for doing this, and to be a part of something bigger, they were excited about it.”