At the weekly breakfast for the men’s ministry of Ariton Baptist Church one Wednesday morning in early June, the men discussed the latest news — teachers at Ariton School were not going to receive any money this year to purchase their classroom supplies.
Then they got an idea.
Why not hold a pork plate fund-raiser to benefit the teachers and help with their supply needs?
The men of this Dale Baptist Association church quickly began recruiting help, and it did not take long for other members of the church and community to get on board.
Robert Thomas, an Ariton resident, and Earl Danner, a deacon at Ariton Baptist, cooked for the fund-raiser, which took place June 27.
More than 900 plates were sold, and $6,000 was raised to give to the teachers.
“Without that supply money, the teachers would have been severely limited in how they taught their students,” said Ben Baker, principal of Ariton School.
“Many would have dipped into their own pockets to make sure the kids would have gotten what they needed,” he said.
Pastor Dave Walsh pointed out that while the fund-raiser was held to help teachers, it helped the schoolchildren, too.
“It was a lot of work, and I don’t care to see pork, yams, green beans or rice for a while, but to help the kids, we’d do it all over again,” Walsh said.
In fact, members of Ariton Baptist already are making plans to do just that.
The $6,000 raised only provided each teacher with $150 to buy supplies.
Normally teachers receive $525 so to make up the difference, Walsh said the church is planning more fund-raisers to collect the lacking $375 per teacher. (TAB)
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