U.S. Flag Replacement

TRCS students of 2003-2004 attended the 9/11 ceremony to honor of the victims of the attack on the World Trade Center. This event is held annually at the Oregon City Bridge, sponsored by the joint efforts of Oregon City and West Linn. An American flag is lowered as bagpipes play. The river is lined with viewers and it is a very touching experience. Two days later, our students became aware that the flag had been stolen from the bridge.

The current events class was outraged and decided to earn the money needed to replace the flag! This class of students realized that they needed to replace the flag immediately, and needed to make an appeal for a loan from the TRCS Board Members. All the board members wrote personal checks to the student body fund, so that the flag could be purchased.

The students then started their efforts to pay back this loan. They had planned bake sales, pop can drives and allowance donations to raise the money. What they didn’t consider was that the word would get to the local media agencies and the story of the students who replaced the flag would be told on the radio, TV, and newspapers. Listeners from far and wide sent in donations to support the cause. Through this joint community effort, the replacement cost was gathered in two days!

One of the students in our school wrote an essay about his experience for the Patriot’s Pen contest and he won an award for his essay.

Later in the year, the local chapter of the VFW (Veteran’s of Foreign Wars) honored the Current Events teacher, Merilee Bales, with Teacher of the Year.

What our school learned from this experience is that being an active member of a community means to take a stand to solve local problems. We learned that united a community has more power to create positive change. And finally, we learned that acts of kindness inspire other acts of kindness.