NEW JERSEY HIGH SCHOOL CLUB IS COMMITTED TO ASL
– AND TO MAKING A DIFFERENCE

When it comes to achieving big things, nothing works so well as inspiration, dedication, and hard work – and the North Plainfield High School ASL Club recently showed that it was more than ready to demonstrate all three on D-PAN’s behalf.

The club, a group of 30 ASL students led by ASL teacher Cori Goldberg, decided to lend a helping hand during D-PAN’s recent $100,000 Plus Challenge fundraising drive—and they weren’t content to do any less than make a truly substantial impact. After several weeks of frenetic activity, the club presented D-PAN with a check for $1,725.00 in late December, 2009.

“We offered six different ways for students, staff, and the community to support the cause. We held four bake sales in which club members brought in homemade baked goods to be sold during a forty-five to sixty minute time slot after school. Each bake sale allowed us to collect between $100 and $150,” Goldberg says. “We also ordered reminder bands (sold for $2 each) and cinch backpacks (sold for $10 each) for students and staff to purchase to show support for us in our efforts to raise money for D-PAN.

“There were several days when I made hundreds of chocolate ILY lollipops for students to sell before and after school in between the dates of our bake sales. Staff and students loved the lollipops – they were a sure sell!”

The club even sponsored a “Staff Dress Down Day,” wherein staff members paid five dollars to wear jeans for the day and receive a gold-tone ILY pin. The club’s efforts were capped off by a $200 donation from the Lions Club of North Plainfield.

The students’ enthusiasm for the fundraiser was fueled both by their passion for ASL and their fondness for D-PAN’s videos. “My students were familiar with D-PAN from the videos I’ve shown them in class. When an opportunity presented itself to support an organization, especially one we have come to like over the past few years, we jumped on it!,” Goldberg says. “On the day of our first meeting of the year, I received your October newsletter announcing the $100,000 (plus) Challenge. I knew my students would jump on the opportunity to help out. I read the newsletter to my students and from that point, it was a unanimous decision. The students were completely responsible for setting the goal of raising $1,500.”

Goldberg and her students share a passion for sign language. Eleventh-grader Sabreen states “I took ASL because it’s a different language, it’s interesting, and I have deaf people in my family who I would like to communicate with.” Shauna, a senior and Co-President of the ASL Honor Society, likes the uniqueness of sign language: “I decided to take ASL because it was different than the usual- Spanish, French, and Italian,” she says. “The more years I took the language, the more I adapted to it and the more involved I got.”

The students’ path towards embracing ASL is one that Goldberg is well familiar with. “I first fell in love with ASL as a freshman in high school. Before ASL was accepted as a world language requirement, it was offered as an elective at my high school due to the Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing program there. Deaf, hard-of-hearing, and hearing students were permitted to take the course and learn together in a fully inclusive environment. From day one, I was hooked,” she recalls. “I knew I wanted to continue on with the language and learn as much as I could… I loved it so much and knew it would be part of my career in the future.”

Goldberg says that her students enjoyed working hard to benefit a charitable cause – so much so that they plan to keep it up. “We started out with approximately fifteen students working on this venture—once the word got out and other ASL students saw how much fun we were having, approximately fifteen more students joined up to help the cause,” she says. “This was the first time we’ve done anything like this. We had such a great time; we’ve decided to make this type of fundraiser an annual effort to kick off the school year."