By NEAL WAGNER / City Editor

When 8-year-old Lindsey Cook saw a video her father took depicting the tornado devastation in Tuscaloosa, she knew she had to share it with her classmates at Creek View Elementary School.

Cook’s father works in Tuscaloosa, and the Creek View second-grader said she had visited the city shortly before the violent tornado hit April 27.

“It’s wiped out. (Before the storm), I was playing on a playground over there, and then I went with my dad to have his oil changed,” Cook said. “When we went back, the oil change place wasn’t even there anymore. Everything is just gone.”

In the days following the storm, Cook brought the video to school and showed it to Amy Cook’s second-grade class. After the children saw the destruction in the video, they formulated a plan to help those affected by the storm.

“After the kids saw the video, Lindsey spoke up and said ‘We need to do something,’” said Creek View Principal Joyce Dixon. “So their teacher let the kids use the supplies she had in her room to make bookmarks.”

After the kids made the bookmarks, they began selling them at the school and in the community for a quarter apiece and donating the proceeds to the American Red Cross.

“I was thinking they may get $100. At the end of the first day they had $121,” Dixon said, noting the entire second-grade class is supporting the project. “Their goal is $1,000 by the end of next week. I feel confident they will meet or maybe even exceed that number.”

One second-grade student, Makayla Hale, took bookmark materials home during the weekend of April 30-May 1. When she returned to school on May 2, she had sold $92 worth of bookmarks.

“I just took them to Fox Valley,” Hale said. “I had sold things there before, so I knew I could sell bookmarks there.”

Before classes began on May 4, dozens of children lined up in front of the bookmark table near the school’s cafeteria and rushed to purchase the items made by their classmates.

When the morning bell rang, the group had raised a total of about $400.

“I am so proud of them. This teaches the kids that they can take care of other people, even in small ways,” Dixon said. “You can’t put a price tag on what this has taught them. This has spread like wildfire through the school.”

“We love helping people,” Lindsey Cook said.