Perry students give $1000 to local animal shelter

An elementary school project about business became much more than teachers ever bargained for.

For good evening.

Good evening.

Thanks for joining us for 41nbc news at 6.

I'm tucker sargent.

Students at a perry elementary school got more than just a lesson in business after a class project blossomed into something bigger.

41nbc's peyton lewis tells us more.

"it was a good experience becuase you're learning a lot about giving and friendship."

An elementary school project about business... "nat pop" became much more than teachers ever bargained for.

"we were trying to get stuff to maybe be able to play whiffle ball outside or maybe do kickball and then it blew up on us and then our $50 we thought we were going to get turned into $550 so that's kind of where the project took a bit of a turn."

1st and 5th grade students at tucker elementary teamed up to make what they called, flower-grams. "nat pop" the students sold their flower grams at school around valentine's day, and fifth grade teacher jessica lebrun says the outpourning of support was shocking... "when we realized how much money we had made, we were like, we can't spend this money on ourselves because we thought we were going to have 45-50 dollars."

But what came next surpised them even more.

"one of the fifth grade students said, hey why don't we donate it."

And they did.

The students voted to give the money to the friends of perry animal shelter, a cause near and dear to 1st grader, jaceyn hall's heart.

"fopas had the most votes, which that really meant a lot to me because that's where we got our dog otto, he was just in a plain street and then they came and got him."

The kids raised $550 dollars all on their own, and the local rotary club matched the donation to give the animal shelter $1000.

5th grader cali williamson was happy to give the shelter the money.

"the lady that was the owner came to our school, and we gave her the check and she was really surprised."

Shelter owners amanda johnson and lynne gibbs say they couldn't be more grateful.

"for them to be considerate of animals and want to help animals, that meant a lot to both of us because you come here 24 hours a day 7 days a week, every day, holidays it doesn't matter, we're always here every single day of the week and we get tired."

Especially during a time when the shelter needed the extra help.

"adoptions were down this past year due to the pandemic.

So some in the room here are pushing 6 months and some are close to a year."

But with the money from the school, the shelter says they can continue to help animals in need.

"we have bills like everyone else so this $ might just go towards the electric bill, water bill, cats have to eat, so it might just go toward caring for the animals."

No matter what the money is used for 1st grade if you'd like to adopt an animal from the friends of perry animal shelter, contact them on their