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Bret Harte Kids Washing Cars and Selling Apples to Get to Washington, D.C.

By Sam Cholke | October 13, 2014 6:02am
 Bret Harte eighth-graders are trying to raise money to go on a special White House tour arranged by Mayor Rahm Emanuel.
Bret Harte DC Trip
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HYDE PARK — Eighth-grader Victoria Bradley already knows what she’s going to ask President Barack Obama if Bret Harte Elementary raises enough money for a class trip to Washington, D.C.

“What I’ll ask him is his plan on ISIS,” Bradley said of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant terrorist group. “I’m pretty sure I’m going to see him because he’ll know we’re coming.”

Bradley and 30 other students at Bret Harte, 1556 E. 56th St., are washing cars, selling taffy apples and holding other fundraisers to cover the $31,000 cost to get to D.C. for a special tour of the White House in April arranged by Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

Kristy Ulrich-Papczun, the new eight-grade teacher at Bret Harte, said she approached the mayor at the unveiling of the school’s new playground in August about getting the students a tour of the White House.

“You usually stand in front of the White House and take a photo and that’s it,” Ulrich-Papczun said.

She said the Mayor’s Office was able to get the students on the list for a tour during their eighth-grade class trip in April and the students are now hustling to raise the money to go.

“It’s life-changing — there is no way we cannot make this happen,” Ulrich-Papczun said. “What other chance are these kids going to have to go in the White House?”

The students have nibbled away at the cost with fundraisers. A car wash raised $444, knocking $14 off the $1,079 price tag for each student. A face-painting booth at the Hyde Park Children’s Book Fair raised $232. Students are individually selling taffy apples to raise money too.

Ulrich-Papczun said she wants to raise enough so that at least a few kids can go for free and none of them has to pay more than $800 for the three-day trip.

She said she knows the fundraisers won’t be enough and is reaching out to local businesses and donors to help support the trip. She said a graduate student at the University of Chicago is also helping make a video for a crowd-funding campaign on a site like Indiegogo.com in coming weeks.

Students said they enjoyed the fundraisers and one student boasted he had already sold more than 200 taffy apples, which cut about $200 off the cost of his ticket.

Ulrich-Papczun said the students will continue working to raise the money until February, when they have to pay for plane tickets for the April trip.

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