Spare change offers hope

Bigfork schools and FOBS are organizing-together with the three Banks in Bigfork, Flathead Bank of Bigfork, Glacier Bank and Rocky Mountain Bank-a fund-raising project to aid tsunami victims.

Bigfork children are rallying community members to gather up all loose change-from pockets, drawers, sofas, the console of your car or wherever-and bring it to Bigfork Elementary School gym on Wednesday, Jan. 12, from 12:30-1:45 p.m. The public is welcome and encouraged to participate. The goal is to blanket the entire gymnasium floor with coins embracing an even bigger goal to help blanket the tsunami victims with care from half a world away.

Through the "Change of Heart" fund-raiser, organizers hope to let the survivors in India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Thailand know that our hearts and thoughts are with them. The Bigfork schools and FOBS are challenging other Montana schools as well as other schools in the United States together with their communities, to do the same or design a project to suit their own resources.

The goal of $4,000, according to one tsunami relief agency, can provide a month's worth of relief for the same number of families in South Asia as currently live in Bigfork.

For more details, call Debbie Ingram at 837-6280.