Seventh-grader Addison Hartzell plays “The Great Gate of Kyiv” with the Ryan Gloyer Middle School orchestra Friday during a lunchtime fundraiser to benefit Ukraine at the school in Jackson Township. The fundraiser raised money for UNICEF to help children with safe water, nutrition, health care and other necessities. Joseph Ressler/Butler

Joseph Ressler

Eighth-grader Kayden Ramser and seventh-grader Olivia Pontius hand out necklaces Friday to students who donated money during a lunchtime fundraiser to benefit Ukraine at Ryan Gloyer Middle School in Jackson Township. The students also made sunflower pins and blue and yellow bracelets that sold out the previous day, raising over $2,000. Joseph Ressler/Butler Eagle

Joseph Ressler

JACKSON TWP — The noisy, upbeat atmosphere outside the cafeteria at Ryan Gloyer Middle School on Friday belied the very serious event playing out in the hallway.

Four students who either were born in, or have relatives in, Ukraine joined together with their principal, Tony Babusci, to come up with a way to raise funds for UNICEF’s Ukraine fund drive as the suffering in their war-torn homeland grinds on.

Alisa Yeremenko, a seventh-grader at the school, said Babusci came up with the idea to make sunflower pins and bracelets with blue and yellow beads.

“He brought up his daughter making bracelets,” Alisa said.

The four students plus 10 of their classmates spent every spare minute during the school day making the pins and bracelets.

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