Tyrel Rose, better known to his students as "Mr. Rose," teaches various social studies classes at Foothill High School.
Every year, he teaches about the Syrian refugee crisis and the past couple years, he's turned the lesson into action. He created a coin drive, inviting students to drop spare change into a piggy bank to be donated to refugees and offering to double whatever they raise.
There are about 70 current seniors and they raised $226, meaning $453 was donated. That's the most a senior class has raised in the history of Mr. Rose's coin drive and one of the smallest groups. The UN sent a letter to the class thanking them for the donation and listing the various causes that money could fund, including clean water for 60 refugees or 128 family shelters.
The seniors said learning about the crisis made giving back easy.
"It was so easy to donate seeing how hard their lives are and then it really put into perspective my life and how I have everything that I need and I have everything provided for me and their life is a struggle and they struggle every single day to live," said senior Claire Champagne.
