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Fairfax County teacher creates 'Soap for Hope' with students to raise money for parents who lost their jobs due to coronavirus

David Kelly said over 200 people donated to Soap for Hope within the first week.

FAIRFAX COUNTY, Va. — Lake Braddock Secondary School teacher David Kelly decided to come together with his students for a cause that could benefit everyone during this pandemic.

"It's really good to know that we're giving them out during this time that we really need it to kill the virus," said Katherine Halick, an eighth-grade student at Lake Braddock Secondary School.

Fairfax County Schools selected Kelly to assist with designing the distance learning packets that would offer to each middle school student the opportunity for hands-on experiments and lessons that they could complete at home.

Kelly said Soap for Hope was prompted after designing the first weeks packet and needing to send out a Google form questionnaire. 

He asked some 144 students about their technology capabilities to see what could be accomplished. An optional question on the form asked the students if an immediate family member had lost his or her job due to the coronavirus and 23% of students answered yes. 

"In 11 years, I was frozen. I did not know what to do." Kelly said.

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Kelly decided there was no way he could have his students focusing on completing packets when be believe the main focus should be helping the families.

"The reason why I chose soap is because we learned chemistry at the beginning of the year. And what great time to utilize our chemistry skills to look at how soap actually destroys the fatty membrane that encases RNA in the virus," Kelly said.

Soap for Hope went live on GoFundMe on April 28 and in less than a week, Kelly and his students raised over $8,000 with over 200 donors. 

Donors: For any donation 10 dollars or more our 8th grade science team will hand make you a bar of soap and write a personalized thank you letter for your contribution! (After donating please email us at soapforhope2020@gmail.com where you want your soap delivered! Unfortunately, we are unable to mail outside of the United States.)

Soap won't be the only thing you'll get in the mail after you've donated. "We are writing handwritten letters for a donation of $10 or more, we mail out a bar of student-made soap and a handwritten letter of encouragement," Kelly said.

So far, Kelly and his students have raised over $12,000 of their $15,000 goal and have made over 400 bars of soap.

The money will go to about 24 families of the students whose parents' jobs were affected by the coronavirus.

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