Eighth-grade heroes

Annual benefit dinner helps refugee families

By Ambria Hammel | Oct. 15, 2009 | The Catholic Sun

It’s not an assignment. It’s not even extra credit, but 30-some eighth-graders welcome the daunting workload every year.

The task: raise more than $30,000 as a class and secure enough food and cash donations to organize, cook and serve a deluxe Mexican dinner for 1,500 guests. The St. Jerome students also collect $7,000 worth of raffle prizes to give away.

They put all proceeds toward helping a newly arrived refugee family — whom they won’t meet until after the fundraising dinner — set up their home and embrace life in the United States.

The project, known simply as “The Mexican Dinner,” is a longstanding tradition for eighth-graders in Rose Mischke’s homeroom. It’s a project that recently went into overdrive as the students started selling tickets, finalizing donations and making the Nov. 22 dinner a reality.

“We only have 32 students, but somehow it gets done,” Mischke said.

That’s because after 26 years, Mischke has the process down to a fine art: build excitement about working with the refugee family from day one, divide the class into committees and give them an intense 45 minutes twice a week to work.

“I was thinking this was going to be easy,” said Phil Agarwal, one of Mischke’s students.

Agarwal, head of the raffle ticket committee, quickly learned that he’d have to step out of his comfort zone to be successful. That meant building his self-confidence in order to approach people he didn’t know and ask them for money. Agarwal is at the top of his class for bringing in the most money.

The eighth-graders have raised $5,000 worth of donations and ticket sales. The top 14 “breadwinners” will be in charge of grocery shopping.

“They learn how to become effective communicators. They learn how to talk to adults. They learn how to write,” Mischke said, listing some of the lessons her eighth-graders get from hosting the dinner.

Mischke, who also teaches math to the upper grades at St. Jerome, ensures the students track and calculate inventory.

The students have already mailed out 1,000 letters to parishes, companies and past donors seeking donations. They’ve also made countless phone calls in search of donors. Nine students spent part of their fall break in Paradise Valley with Mischke seeking donations in person.

“Whenever we have time, this is what we do,” said Mary Olson, chairperson of the food committee. She’s been securing donations from area restaurants and grocery stores.

Other students are designing and printing the tickets, packaging the raffle prizes and working on radio spots and other means of publicizing the annual event.

They’ll spend essentially the entire weekend of the dinner executing every last detail.

“I’ve been told it’s the most tiring day of their life, but it’s worth it,” Olson said. Her two older sisters had Mischke as a teacher, too.

The students dedicate their weekend to the Sunday dinner: five hours on Friday, 10 on Saturday when they prepare most of the food and a 12-hour day Sunday serving and cleaning up.

“You have never seen a more organized, a more friendly place,” Patricia Gillam said of the dinner. She’s been going the last four years.

“[Mischke] tells the students that the guests are going to be treated like kings and queens. You are treated better than a king or queen of any country,” Gillam added.

Gillam, volunteer coordinator for refugee services through Catholic Charities Community Services, works with the eighth-graders the rest of the year as they mentor the refugee family.

Catholic Charities expects some 680 refugees this fiscal year, mainly from Burma and Iraq. The refugees come ready to work, but often with few possessions or an understanding of Western ways.

The St. Jerome students spend every Friday afternoon with the family. They label items in the family’s home to help everyone learn English and basic life skills such has how to use indoor plumbing, turn on a light or open a jar of food. They also teach them about the bus system and how to go to the grocery store.

Mischke said her students have become like family while working on the Mexican dinner. That family will soon grow exponentially once they meet the refugee family.

Mischke is known for requesting that Catholic Charities send “the biggest, poorest family you can find.”

Last year’s students raised enough money from the dinner to support three families. All came from Burma, two of the families having languished in a refugee camp for 10 years.