BLOOMFIELD, NJ — Spring vacation is under way this week for Bloomfield school children.
On Friday last week, at Carteret Elementary, the students were visited by a representative of the American Heart Association. She hoped to drum up some enthusiasm from the children to solicit donations during a three-week long fund drive supporting the heart association.
An assembly for the effort took place in the school gym. Jumping rope was also on the schedule. The event was coordinated by the school physical education teacher, Craig Silverglade.
Once the children had all gotten into neat order by class on the floor, they were asked how big did they think their heart was.
No one quite knew. The children were told to make a fist.
“Your heart is about the size of your fist,” the representative said.
But there was one boy, she said, a 10th-grader in a New Jersey high school, who had a heart the size of a strawberry.
“He was born with heart disease,” the students were told. “He has had five open-heart surgeries.”
The children were asked what made a healthy heart. They did better on this.
The kids were well-behaved and did not shout out answers but raised their hands and waited to be called. Principal John Baltz was in the house, too. When a little natural enthusiasm got too noisy, teachers would raise their hand with two fingers extended, as in the counterculture “peace sign” of the ‘60s. One teacher said she had been at the school a long time and this peace sign had always been used to settle down kids.
“Eat healthy,” one student answered, for a healthy heart.
“Exercise,” was another answer.
“Sleep,” was still another.
“Yes,” the children were told, “getting enough sleep is important for a healthy heart.”
Another thing the children were told was to not drink soda because 10 to 12 teaspoons of sugar goes into every can of soda. The representative told them that in one year, the average soda drinker consumes enough soda to fill a bathtub with sugar.
The children were then told to help the American Heart Association by getting donations for it. For their effort, they would be given gifts, like a small, plastic dog called Ninja Pup.
A video of real dogs followed. This stirred the kids up. No amount of peace signs would have settled them down.
Film clips showed dogs jumping through a hoop, weaving through the pickets of an obstacle course, performing the same trick quickly with amazing canine dexterity. The kids ate it up.
But with more careful observation of the recording, it could be discerned that the tricks the dogs were performing over and over again, and so quickly, were the result of increasing the speed of the film and using a film loop — having the same piece of film edited end-to-end and show again and again.
In other pictures, children alleged to have heart diseases were shown. The students were told that it was important to raise money for the American Heart Association.
The kids oohed and ahhed when they were told what they would receive by reaching higher and higher levels of donations. At the lower end, there were plastic dogs, like “Super Pup.” Jump ropes came next followed by T-shirts and “Milo, the Mission Dog.” There were also headphones at the higher end. What got the biggest reaction from the kids was an Android Tablet. This came with $1,000 in donations.
“Don’t think you were buying these gifts,” the children were told by the representative. “It’s a donation. Don’t think, ‘That’s a lot to pay for a dog.’”
The children were told that when they ask for a donation, they should not say it was for “a really cool dog” they wanted.
“Say it’s for heart disease,” they were told.
After this, students jumped rope. Some of them were really terrific jumpers. It was a perfect way to start spring vacation.
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