Last winter, Barbara Pace's fifth-grade class from Brook Park Elementary in Lawrence Township had settled into the comfortable routine of having hot chocolate every day after recess. When one girl suggested that they start paying for their hot chocolate, they were reluctant to follow her suggestion until they found out why.

"One day Mrs. Pace told us that a girl in our class had an idea to raise some money for a homeless shelter. She said something about paying like 25 cents for every cup of hot chocolate, and like none of the boys wanted to do that. So then we changed it a little bit," said Danielle Hynes, a member of the class.

Y-Press recently interviewed four students from that class at Brook Park: Ty Hoskins, Leslie Seals, Lauren Townsend and Danielle. Now in sixth grade, they recalled the plan to raise money and provide hot chocolate to the homeless at a local shelter. The original idea had been to charge a quarter for what had been a free beverage and give all profits to a shelter. They changed it to collecting donations.

"It started with just our class, (but) it expanded to include the whole school, so we had everybody donating instead of just the 20 people. That made a big difference," Leslie said.

To spread the word, the students hung posters around the school and appeared on the announcements, asking all students to make donations to the homeless. Individual classrooms were encouraged to participate by being told their donations would not only help people, but that the class with the most money at the end of the week would win a prize.

"We used a lot of incentives, like the highest-selling class would get free hot chocolate and cookies. So that was good motivation," Ty explained.

The school's response soon exceeded their expectations. "Our goal, when we started, was to raise like $200 maybe, and we got over that in the first week," Lauren recalled. "We got $400 the first week."

With two more weeks to go, the fifth-graders decided to expand their project to include buying supplies for the homeless as well as treating them to some hot chocolate. The students wrote letters to Wal-Mart, asking for donations, and received candy and hot chocolate. But their biggest supporters were their parents, who contributed to the fund-raiser and did the shopping.

"The class parents were really involved, especially the class moms. They donated sweaters, and they got out and they got all this stuff for us," said Lauren. "Without the class moms, we probably couldn't have done such big things."

The class raised more than $1,000, which it spent on carloads of supplies, ranging from candy and cookies to socks and sweaters.

"It took us three trips" to unload it all, Lauren said.

Everyone agreed that involving the whole school was a great idea. "The good thing to do is to get everyone involved, because you get a lot more results," said Leslie.

On Valentine's Day, the fifth-graders arranged to go to the Lighthouse Mission and hand out what they had collected and serve lunch and hot chocolate to the people there. Some students were shy at first.

"I think a lot of people in our class, before we went to the homeless shelter, were kind of scared because they thought, 'Oh, there's some tough guys there and they're gonna beat us up' and things like that. But, when we were there, most people were really nice, and there was even this one guy who had this sketchbook full of pictures that were really, really beautiful," said Leslie.

The mission was happy for the help, but the homeless people had mixed reactions.

"They were appreciative. It's just they don't know how to respond," said Leslie.

"They don't have much, and they don't get many presents," added Ty. "They just have no clue what to say."

The fifth-graders returned to school for a combination pizza/Valentine's party all their own.

Looking back, they realized they also had collected a new perspective.

"We learned that it was really good to help other people, and it felt good. And even if we didn't go back (to school) and have a pizza party, it really paid off. We really felt that we helped the community," said Lauren.

"I think that's probably the best Valentine's Day I've ever had, because usually we're at school during Valentine's Day -- we just have the little party and we exchange Valentine cards. I've never been to a homeless shelter before, and I thought it was an overall really good learning experience," Danielle said.

REPORTERS: Gabrielle Bibeau, 12, and Lauren Slemenda, 12.